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ESSAYS 

SPECULATIVE  AND  POLITICAL 


ARTHUR    JAMES    BALFOUR 


ESSAYS 

SPECULATIVE  AND  POLITICAL 


BY  THE 

Rt.  Hon.  ARTHUR  JAMES  BALFOUR 

M.A..  F.R.S..  LL.D..  D.C.L. 
AUTHOR  OP  "theism  AND  HUMANISM,"  "tHE 
FOUNDATIONS  OF  BELIEF,"  ETC. 


NEW  X55r^  YORK 
GEORGE  H.  DORAN  COMPANY 


Ac  y 

'B3  4 


COPYRIGHT,  1921, 
BY  Q£OBO£  H.  DORAN  CX)MPANY 


I 

PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


i 


PREFACE 

In  this  volume  I  have  collected  Essajrs,  Lectures 
and  some  occasional  pieces  written  during  the  last 
twelve  years.  They  touch  on  subjects  of  the  most 
varied  character,  ranging  from  a  revue  of  M. 
Bergson's  L' Evolution  Or^atnce  to  brief  Notes  on 
"Zionism"  and  "The  Freedom  of  the  Seas."  I  do 
not  expect,  I  need  hardly  say,  that  even  the  most 
friendly  reader  will  take  an  interest  in  them  all; 
though  perhaps  he  may,  here  and  there,  find  some- 
thing to  meet  his  individual  tastes. 

I  have  roughly  divided  them  into  groups,  about 
one  of  which  a  special  word  of  explanation  and 
apology  is  perhaps  necessary — the  group  relating 
to  Germany.  Of  these  the  first  in  date  is  an  article 
on  Anglo-German  relations,  written  at  the  request 
of  Professor  Dr.  Ludwig  Stein  in  1912  for  the 
well-known  periodical  Nord  und  Sild;  the  second  is 
a  review  of  Treitschke's  Lectures  on  "Politics"; 
the  third  is  the  Note  on  "The  Freedom  of  the  Seas" 
already  referred  to ;  and  the  last  is  a  reprint  of  the 
Official  Dispatch  on  the  Allied  objects  in  the  War 


vi  PREFACE 

which  I  wrote  in  January  1917.  Of  these  the 
first  was  written  entirely  for  German  readers;  the 
third,  in  the  main,  for  American  friends ;  while  the 
fourth  was  the  British  reply  to  President  Wilson's 
request  for  a  statement  of  the  objects  of  the  En- 
tente Powers  in  the  War.  All  these  Papers  were 
occasional,  and  one  of  them  was  official;  but,  in  a 
certain  sense,  they  form  a  series  representing  the 
contemporary  thoughts  of  at  least  one  individual 
concerned  with  the  various  stages  in  the  great 
drama  which  ended  in  June  1919. 

To  some  readers  the  Paper  of  1912  may  seem 
lacking  in  the  emphasis  of  its  warnings.  But  it 
was  written,  as  I  have  already  said,  for  the  Ger- 
man public,  at  the  request  of  a  German  editor,  who, 
without  doubt,  sincerely  desired  to  improve  the 
relations  between  Germany  and  Britain.  The 
object  was  a  laudable  one,  with  which  I  heartily 
sympathised;  and  it  certainly  would  not  have  been 
promoted  by  the  adoption  of  too  controversial  a 
tone. 

As  the  interest  of  some  of  these  Papers,  if  they 
have  any  interest,  depends  in  part  upon  the  date 
at  which  they  were  written,  I  have  in  no  case 
altered  the  sense  of  the  text,  though  here  and  there 
I  have  made  slight  verbal  improvements. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  the  Editors  of  the  various 


^    PREFACE                          vii  ^ 

books  and  journals  in  which  any  of  these  Essays  \ 

may  have  originally  appeared  for  permission  to  re-  \ 

publish  them.  \ 

A.  J.  B. 

Whittingehame,                                            ^  J 

October,  1920  ] 

i 


CONTENTS 

PART  ONE:    SPECXJLATIVE 

CHAPTEB  PAGE 

I    Decadence 13 

Sidgwick  Memorial  Lecture,  Cambridge,  1908 


II    Beauty:  and  the  Criticism  of  Beauty      57 
Romanes  Memorial  Lecture,  Oxford,  1909 


III    Bergson's  Creative  Evolution    ...       99 
Twenty-fifth  Anniversary  of  the  Hibbert  Jour- 
nal, 1911. 


IV    Francis  Bacon 137 

Tercentenary  Celebration  at  Gray's  Inn,  1912 


V    Psychical  Research 153 

Presidential  Address,  1894 


1 


X  CONTENTS 

PART  TWO:    POLITICAL 

CHAPTER  FAOG 

VI    Anglo-German  Relations      .     .     .     .     177 
Written  for  N&rd  und  Slid,  1912 

Vn    Treitschke's  View  of  German  World- 
Policy  189 

Introduction  to  the  English   translation  of 
his  Lectures,  1916. 

VIII    The  Freedom  of  the  Seas   .     .     .     .211 
Reflections  addressed  to  the  American  public 
in  1916. 

IX    The  Foundations  of  a  Durable  Peace    223 
The  British  Reply  of  January,  1917,  to  Pres- 
ident Wilson's  dispatch  to  the  Entente 
Powers  requesting  information  as  to  their 
aims. 

X    A  Brief  Note  on  Zionism     ....     233 
The  Introduction  to  The  History  of  Zionism, 
by  M.  Sokolow. 


PART  ONE:    SPECULATIVE 
I:  DECADENCE 


I 

DECADENCE  ^ 

I  MUST  begin  what  I  have  to  say  with  a  warning 
and  an  apology.  I  must  warn  you  that  the  present 
essay  makes  no  pretence  to  be  an  adequate  treat- 
ment of  some  compact  and  hmited  theme;  but 
rather  resembles  those  wandering  trains  of 
thought,  where  we  allow  ourselves  the  luxury  of 
putting  wide-ranging  questions,  to  which  our 
ignorance  forbids  any  confident  reply.  I  apologise 
for  adopting  a  course  which  thus  departs  in  some 
measure  from  familiar  precedent.  I  admit  its 
perils.  But  it  is  just  possible  that  when  a  subject, 
or  group  of  subjects,  is  of  great  inherent  interest, 
even  a  tentative  and  interrogative  treatment  of  it 
may  be  worth  attempting. 

My  subject,  or  at  least  my  point  of  departure, 
is  Decadence.  I  do  not  mean  the  sort  of  de- 
cadence often  attributed  to  certain  phases  of 
artistic  or  literary  development,  in  which  an  over- 
wrought technique,  straining  to  express  sentiments 

^  Henry  Sidgwick  Memorial  Lecture,  delivered  at  Newnham 
College,  January  25,  1908. 

13 


14  DECADENCE 

too  subtle  or  too  morbid,  is  deemed  to  have  sup- 
planted the  direct  inspiration  of  an  earlier  and  a 
simpler  age.  Whether  these  autumnal  glories, 
these  splendours  touched  with  death,  are  recurring 
phenomena  in  the  literary  cycle;  whether,  if  they 
be,  they  are  connected  with  other  forms  of  de- 
cadence, may  be  questions  well  worth  asking  and 
answering.  But  they  are  not  the  questions  with 
which  I  am  at  present  concerned.  The  decadence 
respecting  which  I  wish  to  put  questions  is  not 
specifically  literary  or  artistic.  It  is  the  decadence 
which  attacks,  or  is  alleged  to  attack,  great  com- 
munities and  historic  civilisations :  which  is  to  socie- 
ties of  men  what  senility  is  to  man,  and  is  often, 
like  senility,  the  precursor  and  the  cause  of  final 
dissolution. 

It  is  curious  how  deeply  imbedded  in  ordinary 
discourse  are  traces  of  the  conviction  that 
childhood,  maturity,  and  old  age  are  stages  in  the 
corporate,  as  they  are  in  the  individual,  life.  "A 
young  and  vigorous  nation,"  "a  decrepit  and  mori- 
bund civilisation" — phrases  like  these,  and  scores 
of  others  containing  the  same  implication,  come  as 
trippingly  from  the  tongue  as  if  they  suggested  no 
difficulty  and  called  for  no  explanation.  To 
Macaulay  (unless  I  am  pressing  his  famous  meta- 
phor too  far)  it  seemed  natural  that  ages  hence  a 
young    country    like    New    Zealand    should    be 


DECADENCE  15 

flourishing,  but  not  less  natural  that  an  old  coun- 
try like  England  should  have  decayed;  Berkeley, 
in  a  well-known  stanza,  tells  how  the  dTama  of 
civilisation  has  slowly  travelled  westward  to  find 
its  loftiest  development,  but  also  its  final  catas- 
trophe, in  the  New  World;  while  every  man  who 
is  weary,  hopeless,  or  disillusioned  talks  as  if  his 
unhappy  case  was  due  to  the  decadent  epoch  in 
which  his  lot  was  cast. 

But  why  should  civilisations  thus  wear  out  and 
great  communities  decay?  and  what  evidence  is 
there  that,  in  fact,  they  do?  These  questions, 
though  I  cannot  give  to  them  any  conclusive 
answers,  are  of  much  more  than  a  merely  theoretic 
interest.  For  if  current  modes  of  speech  take  De- 
cadence for  granted,  with  still  greater  confidence 
do  they  speak  of  Progress  as  assured.  Yet  if  both 
are  real  they  can  hardly  be  studied  apart,  they  must 
evidently  limit  and  qualify  each  other  in  actual 
experience,  and  they  cannot  be  isolated  in  specula- 
tion. 

Though  antiquity.  Pagan  and  Christian,  took 
a  different  view,  it  seems  easier,  a  priori^  to  under- 
stand Progress  than  Decadence.  Even  if  Progress 
be  arrested,  as  presumably  it  must  be,  by  the 
limitation  of  human  faculty,  we  should  expect  the 
ultimate  boundary  to  be  capable  of  indefinite  ap- 
proach, and  we  should  not  expect  that  any  part  of 


16  DECADENCE 

the  road  towards  it,  once  traversed,  would  have  to 
be  retraced.  Even  in  the  organic  world,  decay  and 
death,  familiar  though  they  be,  are  phenomena  that 
call  for  scientific  explanation.  And  Weismann 
has  definitely  asked  how  it  comes  about  that  the 
higher  organisms  grow  old  and  die,  seeing  that  old 
age  and  death  are  not  inseparable  characteristics 
of  living  protoplasm,  and  that  the  simplest  organ- 
isms suffer  no  natural  decay,  perishing,  when  they 
do  perish,  by  accident,  starvation,  or  specific 
disease. 

The  answer  he  gives  to  his  own  question  is  that 
the  death  of  the  individual  is  so  useful  to  the  race, 
that  Natural  Selection  has,  in  all  but  the  very 
lowest  species,  exterminated  the  potentially  im- 
mortal. 

One  is  tempted  to  inquire  whether  this  in- 
genious explanation  could  be  so  modified  as  to 
apply  not  merely  to  individuals,  but  to  communi- 
ties. Is  it  needful,  in  the  interests  of  civilisation 
as  a  whole,  that  the  organised  embodiment  of  each 
particular  civilisation,  if  and  when  its  free  develop- 
ment is  arrested,  should  make  room  for  younger 
and  more  vigorous  competitors?  And  if  so  can 
we  find  in  Natural  Selection  the  mechanism  by 
which  the  principle  of  decay  and  dissolution  shall 
be  so  implanted  in  the  very  nature  of  human  socie- 


DECADENCE  17 

ties  as  to  secure  that  a  due  succession  among  them 
shall  always  be  maintained? 

To  this  second  question  the  answer  must,  I  think, 
be  in  the  negative.  The  struggle  for  existence  be- 
tween different  races  and  different  societies  has 
admittedly  played  a  great  part  in  social  develop- 
ment. But  the  extension  of  Weismann's  idea  from 
the  organic  to  the  social  world,  would  imply  a  pro- 
longed competition  between  groups  of  communities 
in  which  decadence  was  the  rule  and  groups  in 
which  it  was  not — ending  in  the  survival  of  the  first 
and  the  destruction  of  the  second.  The  groups 
whose  members  suffered  periodical  decadence  and 
dissolution  would  be  the  fittest  to  survive:  just  as, 
on  Weismann's  theory,  those  species  which  are  con- 
stantly replacing  the  old  by  the  young  have  an 
advantage  in  the  competitive  struggle. 

Few,  however,  will  say  that  in  the  petty  fragment 
of  human  history  which  alone  is  open  to  our  inspec- 
tion, there  is  satisfactory  evidence  of  any  such  long 
drawn  process.  Some  may  even  be  disposed  to  ask 
whether  there  is  adequate  evidence  of  such  a  phe- 
nomenon as  decadence  at  all.  And  it  must  be 
acknowledged  that  the  affirmative  answer  should 
be  given  with  caution.  Evidently  we  must  not  con- 
sider a  diminution  of  national  power,  whether  rela- 
tive or  absolute,  as  constituting  by  itself  a  proof 
of  national  decadence.     Holland  is  not  decadent 


18  DECADENCE 

because  her  place  in  the  hierarchy  of  European 
Powers  is  less  exalted  than  it  was  two  hundred 
and  fifty  years  ago.  Spain  was  not  necessarily 
decadent  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
because  she  had  exhausted  herself  in  a  contest  far 
beyond  her  resources  either  in  money  or  in  men. 
It  would,  I  think,  be  rash  even  to  say  that  Venice 
was  decadent  at  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
though  the  growth  of  other  Powers,  and  the  diver- 
sion of  the  great  trade  routes,  had  shorn  her  of 
wealth  and  international  influence.  These  are  mis- 
fortunes which  in  the  sphere  of  sociology  corre- 
spond to  accident  or  disease  in  the  sphere  of  biology. 
And  what  we  are  concerned  to  know  is  whether  in 
the  sphere  of  sociology  there  is  also  anything  cor- 
responding to  the  decay  of  old  age — a  decay  which 
may  be  hastened  by  accident  or  disease,  but  is  cer- 
tainly to  be  distinguished  from  both. 

However  this  question  should  be  answered  the 
cases  I  have  cited  are  sufficient  to  show  where  the 
chief  difficulty  of  the  inquiry  lies.  Decadence,  even 
if  it  be  a  reality,  never  acts  in  isolation.  It  is 
always  complicated  with,  and  often  acts  through, 
other  more  obvious  causes.  It  is  always  therefore 
possible  to  argue  that  to  these  causes,  not  to  the 
more  elusive  influences  collectively  described  as 
"decadence,"  the  decline  and  fall  of  great  com- 
munities is  really  due. 


DECADENCE  19 

Yet  there  are  historic  tragedies  which  (as  it 
seems  to  me)  do  most  obstinately  refuse  to  be  thus 
simply  explained.  It  is  in  vain  that  historians 
enumerate  the  public  calamities  which  preceded, 
and  no  doubt  contributed  to,  the  final  catastrophe. 
Civil  dissensions,  military  disasters,  pestilences, 
famines,  tyrants,  tax-gatherers,  growing  burdens 
and  waning  wealth — the  gloomy  catalogue  is  un- 
rolled before  our  eyes,  yet  somehow  it  does  not  in 
all  cases  wholly  satisfy  us;  we  feel  that  some  of 
these  diseases  are  of  a  kind  which  a  vigorous  body 
politic  should  easily  be  able  to  survive,  that  others 
are  secondary  symptoms  of  some  obscurer  malady, 
and  that  in  neither  case  do  they  supply  us  with 
the  full  explanations  of  which  we  are  in  search. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  long  agony  and  final 
destruction  of  Roman  Imperialism  in  the  West, 
the  most  momentous  catastrophe  of  which  we  have 
historic  record.  It  has  deeply  stirred  the  imagina- 
tion of  mankind,  it  has  been  the  theme  of  great 
historians,  it  has  been  much  explained  by  political 
philosophers,  yet  who  feels  that  either  historians 
or  philosophers  have  laid  bare  the  real  secrets  of 
the  tragedy?  Rome  fell,  and  great  was  the  fall  of 
it.  But  why  it  fell,  by  what  secret  mines  its  de- 
fences were  breached,  and  what  made  its  garrison 
so  faint-hearted  and  ineffectual — this  is  by  no 
means  clear. 


20  DECADENCE 

In  order  to  measure  adequately  the  difficulty  of 
the  problem,  let  us  abstract  our  minds  from  his- 
torical details  and  compare  the  position  of  the 
Empire  about  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
with  its  position  in  the  middle  of  the  third  or  again 
at  the  end  of  the  fourth,  and  ask  of  what  forces 
history  gives  us  an  account,  sufficient  in  these 
periods  to  effect  so  mighty  a  transformation.  Or, 
still  better,  imagine  an  observer  equipped  with  our 
current  stock  of  political  wisdom,  transported  to 
Rome  in  the  reign  of  Antoninus  Pius  or  Marcus 
Aurelius,  and  in  ignorance  of  the  event,  writing 
letters  to  the  newspapers  on  the  future  destinies  of 
the  Empire.    What  would  his  forecast  be? 

We  might  suppose  him  to  examine,  in  the  first 
place,  the  military  position  of  the  State,  its  prob- 
able enemies,  its  capacities  for  defence.  He  would 
note  that  only  on  its  eastern  boundary  was  there 
an  organised  military  Power  capable  of  meeting 
Rome  on  anything  like  equal  terms,  and  this  only 
in  the  regions  adjacent  to  their  common  frontier. 
For  the  rest,  he  would  discover  no  civilised  enemy 
along  the  southern  boundary  to  the  Atlantic  or 
along  its  northern  boundary  from  the  Black  Sea 
to  the  German  Ocean.  Warlike  tribes  indeed  he 
would  find  in  plenty:  difficult  to  crush  within  the 
limits  of  their  native  forests  and  morasses,  for- 
midable it  may  be  in  a  raid,  but  without  political 


DECADENCE  21 

cohesion,  military  unity,  or  the  means  of  military 
concentration;  troublesome,  therefore,  rather  than 
dangerous.  If  reminded  of  Varus  and  his  lost 
legions,  he  would  ask  of  what  importance,  in  the 
story  of  a  world-power,  could  be  the  loss  of  a  few 
thousand  men  surprised  at  a  distance  from  their 
base  amid  the  entanglements  of  a  difficult  and 
unknown  country?  Never,  it  would  seem,  was 
Empire  more  fortunately  circumstanced  for  pur- 
poses of  home  defence. 

But  (it  might  be  thought)  the  burden  of  secur- 
ing frontiers  of  such  length,  even  against  merely 
tribal  assaults,  though  easy  from  a  !Strictly  military 
point  of  view,  might  prove  too  heavy  to  be  long 
endured.  Yet  the  military  forces  scattered 
through  the  Roman  Empire,  though  apparently 
adequate  in  the  days  of  her  greatness,  would, 
according  to  modern  ideas,  seem  hardly  sufficient 
for  purposes  of  police,  let  alone  defence.  An  army 
corps  or  less  was  deemed  enough  to  preserve  what 
are  now  mighty  kingdoms  from  internal  disorder 
and  external  aggression.  And  if  we  compare  with 
this  the  contributions,  either  in  the  way  of  money 
or  of  men,  exacted  from  Mediterranean  lands 
before  the  Empire  came  into  being,  or  at  any  period 
of  the  world's  history  since  it  dissolved  away,  the 
comparison  must,  I  suppose,  be  entirely  in  favour 
of  the  Empire. 


22  DECADENCE 

But  burdens  which  seem  light  if  measured  by 
area  may  be  heavy  if  measured  by  ability  to  pay. 
Yet  when  has  ability  to  pay  been  greater  in  the 
regions  bordering  the  Southern  and  Eastern  Medi- 
terranean than  under  the  Roman  Empire?  Travel 
round  it  in  imagination  eastward  from  the 
Atlantic  coast  of  Morocco  till  returning  westward 
you  reach  the  head  of  the  Adriatic  Gulf,  and  you 
will  have  skirted  a  region,  still  of  immense  natural 
wealth,  once  filled  with  great  cities  and  fertile 
farms,  better  governed  during  the  Empire  than  it 
has  ever  been  governed  since  (at  least  till  Algeria 
was  ruled  by  the  French  and  Egypt  by  the  Brit- 
ish) ;  including  among  its  provinces  what  were 
great  states  before  the  Roman  rule,  and  have  been 
great  states  since  that  rule  decayed,  divided  by  no 
international  jealousies,  oppressed  by  no  fear  of 
conquest,  enterprising,  cultured.  Remember  that 
to  estimate  its  area  of  taxation  and  recruiting  you 
must  add  to  these  regions  Bulgaria,  Servia,  much 
of  Austria  and  Bavaria,  Switzerland,  Belgium, 
Italy,  France,  Spain,  and  most  of  Britain,  and  you 
have  conditions  favourable  to  military  strength  and 
economic  prosperity  rarely  equalled  in  the  modern 
world  and  never  in  the  ancient. 

Our  observer  however  might,  very  rightly,  feel 
that  a  far-spreading  Empire  like  that  of  Rome, 
including  regions   profoundly   differing  in  race, 


DECADENCE  23 

history,  and  religion,  would  be  liable  to  other 
dangers  than  those  which  arise  from  mere  external 
aggression.  One  of  the  first  questions,  therefore, 
which  he  would  be  disposed  to  ask,  is  whether  so 
heterogeneous  a  state  was  not  in  perpetual  danger 
of  dissolution  through  the  disintegrating  influence 
of  national  sentiments.  He  would  learn,  probably 
with  a  strong  feeling  of  surprise,  that  with  the 
single  exception  of  the  Jews,  its  constituent 
nations,  once  conquered,  were  not  merely  content 
to  be  parts  of  the  Empire,  but  could  scarcely 
imagine  themselves  as  anything  else;  that  the 
Imperial  system  appealed,  not  merely  to  the  ma- 
terial needs  of  the  component  populations,  but  also 
to  their  imagination  and  their  loyalty;  that  Gaul, 
Spain,  and  Britain,  though  but  recently  forced 
within  the  pale  of  civilisation,  were  as  faithful  to 
the  Imperial  ideal  as  the  Greeks  of  Athens  or  the 
Hellenised  Orientals  of  Syria;  and  that  neither 
historic  memories,  nor  local  patriotism,  nor  dis- 
puted successions,  nor  public  calamities,  nor 
administrative  divisions,  ever  really  shook  the  sen- 
timent in  favour  of  Imperial  Unity.  There  might 
be  more  than  one  Emperor,  but  there  could  only 
be  one  Empire.  Howsoever  our  observer  might 
disapprove  of  the  Imperial  system  he  would  there- 
fore have  to  admit  that  the  Empire,  with  all  its 
shortcomings,  its  absolutism,  and  its  bureaucracy, 


24  DECADENCE 

had  solved  more  successfully  than  any  government, 
before  or  since,  the  problem  of  devising  a  scheme 
which  equally  satisfied  the  sentiments  of  East  and 
West;  which  respected  local  feelings,  and  encour- 
aged local  government;  in  which  the  Celt,  the 
Iberian,  the  Berber,  the  Egyptian,  the  Asiatic,  the 
Greek,  the  Illyrian,  the  Italian  were  all  at  home, 
and  which,  though  based  on  conquest,  was  accepted 
by  the  conquered  as  the  natural  organisation  of  the 
civilised  world. 

Rome  had  thus  unique  sources  of  strength. 
What  sources  of  weakness  would  our  observer  be 
likely  to  detect  behind  her  imposing  exterior?  The 
diminution  of  population  is  the  one  which  has 
(rightly  I  think)  most  impressed  historians;  and 
it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  evidence,  either  of  the 
fact  or  of  its  disastrous  consequences.  I  hesitate 
indeed  to  accept  without  qualification  the  accounts 
given  us  of  the  progressive  decay  of  the  native 
Italian  stock  from  the  days  of  the  Gracchi  to  the 
disintegration  of  the  Empire  in  the  West;  and 
when  we  read  how  the  dearth  of  men  was  made 
good  (in  so  far  as  it  was  made  good)  by  the  in- 
creasing inflow  of  slaves  and  adventurers  from 
every  comer  of  the  known  world,  one  wonders 
whose  sons  they  were  who,  for  three  centuries  and 
more,  so  brilliantly  led  the  van  of  modern  Euro- 
pean culture,  as  it  emerged  from  the  darkness  of 


DECADENCE  25 

the  early  Middle  Ages.  Passing  by  such  collateral 
iasues,  however,  and  admitting  depopulation  to 
have  been  both  real  and  serious,  we  may  well  ask 
whether  it  was  not  the  result  of  Roman  decadence 
rather  than  its  cause — ^the  symptom  of  some  deep- 
seated  social  malady,  not  its  origin.  We  are  not 
concerned  here  with  the  aristocracy  of  Rome,  nor 
even  with  the  people  of  Italy.  We  are  concerned 
with  the  Empire.  We  are  not  concerned  with  a 
passing  phase  or  fashion,  but  with  a  process  which 
seems  to  have  gone  on  with  increasing  rapidity, 
through  good  times  as  well  as  bad,  till  the  final 
cataclysm.  A  local  disease  might  have  a  local  ex- 
planation, a  transient  disease  might  be  due  to  a 
chance  coincidence.  But  what  can  we  say  of  a 
disease  which  was  apparently  co-extensive  with 
Imperial  civilisation  in  area,  and  which  exceeded  it 
in  duration? 

I  find  it  hard  to  believe  that  either  a  selfish 
aversion  to  matrimony  or  a  mystical  admiration 
for  celibacy,  though  at  certain  periods  the  one  was 
common  in  Pagan  and  the  other  in  Christian 
circles,  were  more  than  elements  in  the  complex  of 
causes  by  which  the  result  was  brought  about. 
Like  the  plagues  which  devastated  Europe  in  the 
second  and  third  centuries,  they  must  have  greatly 
aggravated  the  evil,  but  they  are  hardly  sufiScient 
to  account  for  it.    Nor  yet  can  we  find  an  explana- 


26  DECADENCE 

tion  of  it  in  the  sense  of  impending  doom,  by  which 
men's  spirits  were  oppressed  long  before  the 
Imperial  power  began  visibly  to  wane;  for  this  is 
one  of  the  things  which,  if  historically  true,  does 
itself  most  urgently  require  explanation. 

It  may  be,  however,  that  our  wandering  poli- 
tician would  be  too  well  gi*ounded  in  Malthusian 
economics  to  regard  a  diminution  of  population  as 
in  itself  an  overwhelming  calamity.  And  if  he 
were  pressed  to  describe  the  weak  spots  in  the 
Empire  of  the  Antonines  he  would  be  disposed,  I 
think,  to  look  for  them  on  the  ethical  rather  than 
on  the  military,  the  economic,  or  the  strictly 
political  sides  of  social  life.  He  would  be  inclined 
to  say,  as  in  effect  Mr.  Lecky  does  say,  that  in  the 
institution  of  slavery,  in  the  brutalities  of  the 
gladiatorial  shows,  in  the  gratuitous  distribution  of 
bread  to  urban  mobs,  are  to  be  found  the  corrupt- 
ing influences  which  first  weakened  and  then 
destroyed  the  vigour  of  the  State. 

I  confess  that  I  cannot  easily  accept  this 
analysis  of  the  facts.  As  regards  the  gladiatorial 
shows,  even  had  they  been  universal  throughout 
the  Empire,  and  had  they  flourished  more  rankly 
as  its  power  declined,  I  should  still  have  questioned 
the  propriety  of  attributing  too  far-reaching 
effects  to  such  a  cause.  The  Romans  were  brutal 
while  they  were  conquering  the  world :  its  conquest 


DECADENCE  27 

enabled  them  to  be  brutal  with  ostentation;  but  we 
must  not  measure  the  ill  consequences  of  their  bar- 
baric tastes  by  the  depth  of  our  own  disgusts,  nor 
assume  the  Gothic  invasions  to  be  the  natural  and 
fitting  Nemesis  of  so  much  spectacular  shedding  of 
innocent  blood. 

As  for  the  public  distributions  of  corn,  one 
would  wish  to  have  more  evidence  as  to  its  social 
effects.  But  even  without  fully  accepting  the 
theory  of  the  latest  Italian  historian  of  ancient 
Rome  who  believes  that,  under  the  then  prevailing 
conditions  of  transport,  no  very  large  city  could 
exist  in  antiquity  if  the  supply  of  its  food  were  left 
to  private  enterprise,  we  cannot  seriously  regard 
this  practice,  strange  as  it  seems  to  us,  as  an  im- 
portant element  in  the  problem.  Granting  for  the 
sake  of  argument  that  it  demoralised  the  mob  of 
Rome,  it  must  be  remembered  that  Rome  was  not 
the  Empire,  nor  did  the  mob  of  Rome  govern  the 
Empire  as  once  it  had  governed  the  Republic. 

Slavery  is  a  far  more  important  matter.  The 
magnitude  of  its  effects  on  ancient  societies,  diffi- 
cult as  these  are  to  disentangle,  can  hardly  be 
exaggerated.  But  with  what  plausibility  can  we 
find  in  it  the  cause  of  Rome's  decline,  seeing  that 
it  was  the  concomitant  also  of  its  rise?  How  can 
that  which  in  antiquity  was  common  to  all  states 
have  this  exceptional  and  malign  influence  upon 


28  DECADENCE 

one?  It  would  not  in  any  case  be  easy  to  accept 
such  a  theory;  but  surely  it  becomes  impossible 
when  we  bear  in  mind  the  enormous  improvement 
effected  under  the  Empire  both  in  the  law  and  the 
practice  of  slavery.  Great  as  were  its  evils,  they 
were  diminishing  evils — less  ruinous  as  time  went 
on  to  the  character  of  the  master,  less  painful  and 
degrading  to  the  slave.  Who  can  believe  that  this 
immemorial  custom  could,  in  its  decline,  destroy  a 
civilisation  which,  in  its  vigour,  it  had  helped  to 
create? 

Of  course  our  observer  would  see  much  in  the 
social  system  he  was  examining  which  he  would 
rightly  regard  as  morally  detestable  and  politically 
pernicious.  But  the  real  question  before  him 
would  not  be  "are  these  things  good  or  bad?"  but 
"are  these  things  getting  better  or  getting  worse?" 
And  surely  in  most  cases  he  would  be  obliged  to 
answer  "getting  better."  Many  things  moreover 
would  come  under  his  notice  fitted  to  move  his 
admiration  in  a  much  less  qualified  manner.  Few 
governments  have  been  more  anxious  to  foster  an 
alien  and  higher  culture  than  was  the  Roman  Gov- 
ernment to  foster  Greek  civilisation.  In  so  far  as 
Rome  inherited  what  Alexander  conquered,  it 
carried  out  the  ideal  which  Alexander  had  con- 
ceived. In  few  periods  have  the  rich  been  readier 
to  spend  of  their  private  fortunes  on  public  ob- 


DECADENCE  29 

jects.  There  never  was  a  community  in  which 
associations  for  every  purpose  of  mutual  aid  or 
enjojnment  sprang  more  readily  into  existence. 
There  never  was  a  military  monarchy  less  given 
to  wars  of  aggression.  There  never  was  an  age  in 
which  there  was  a  more  rapid  advance  in  humani- 
tarian ideals,  or  a  more  anxious  seeking  after 
spiritual  truth.  Education  was  well  endowed,  and 
its  professors  held  in  high  esteem.  Physical  cul- 
ture was  cared  for.  Law  was  becoming  scientific. 
Research  was  not  forgotten.  What  more  could  be 
reasonably  expected? 

According  to  our  ordinary  methods  of  analysis 
it  is  not  easy  to  say  what  more  cotiM  be  reasonably 
expected.  But  plainly  much  more  was  required. 
In  a  few  generations  from  the  time  of  which  I  am 
speaking  the  Empire  lost  its  extraordinary  power 
of  assimilating  alien  and  barbaric  elements.  It 
became  too  feeble  either  to  absorb  or  to  expel 
them;  and  the  immigrants  who  in  happier  times 
might  have  bestowed  renewed  vigour  on  the  com- 
monwealth, became,  in  the  hour  of  its  decline,  a 
weakness  and  a  peril.  Poverty  grew  as  popula- 
tion shrank.  Municipal  office,  once  so  eagerly 
desired,  became  the  most  cruel  of  burdens.  Asso- 
ciations connected  with  industry  or  commerce, 
which  began  by  freely  exchanging  public  service 
for  public  privilege,   found  their  members   sub- 


30  DECADENCE 

jected  to  ever  increasing  obligations,  for  the  due 
performance  of  which  they  and  their  children  were 
liable  in  person  and  in  property.  Thus  while 
Christianity,  and  the  other  forces  that  mat'  *or 
mercy,  were  diminishing  the  slavery  of  the  siave, 
the  needs  of  the  Bureaucracy  compelled  it  to 
trench  ever  more  and  more  upon  the  freedom  of  the 
free.  It  was  each  man's  duty  (so  ran  the  argu- 
ment) to  serve  the  commonwealth:  he  could  best 
serve  the  commonwealth  by  devoting  himself  to  his 
calling  if  it  were  one  of  public  necessity:  this  duty 
he  should  be  required  under  penalties  to  perform, 
and  to  devote  if  necessary  to  its  performance 
labour  to  the  limits  of  endurance,  fortune  to  the 
last  shilling,  and  family  to  the  remotest  genera- 
tion. Through  this  crude  experiment  in  socialism, 
the  civilised  world  seemed  to  be  rapidly  moving 
towards  a  system  of  universal  caste,  imposed 
by  no  immemorial  custom,  supported  by  no  re- 
ligious scruple,  but  forced  on  an  unwilling  peo- 
ple by  the  Emperor's  edict  and  the  executioner's 
lash. 

These  things  have  severally  and  collectively 
been  regarded  as  the  causes  why  in  the  West  the 
Imperial  system  so  quickly  crumbled  into  chaos. 
And  so  no  doubt  they  were.  But  they  obviously 
require  themselves  to  be  explained  by  causes  more 
general  and  more  remote;  and  what  were  these? 


DECADENCE  31 

If  I  answer  as  I  feel  disposed  to  answer — 
Decadence — ^you  will  properly  ask  how  the  un- 
known becomes  less  unknown  merely  by  receiving 
a'l^ihe.  I  reply  that  if  there  be  indeed  subtle 
changes  in  the  social  tissues  of  old  communities 
which  make  them,  as  time  goes  on,  less  resistant  to 
the  external  attacks  and  the  internal  disturbances 
by  which  all  communities  are  threatened,  overt 
recognition  of  the  fact  is  a  step  in  advance.  We 
have  not  an  idea  of  what  "life"  consists  in,  but  if 
on  that  account  we  were  to  abstain  from  using  the 
term,  we  should  not  be  better  but  worse  equipped 
for  dealing  with  the  problems  of  physiology;  while 
on  the  other  hand,  if  we  could  translate  life  into 
terms  of  matter  and  motion  to-morrow,  we  should 
still  be  obliged  to  use  the  word  in  order  to  dis- 
tinguish the  material  movements  which  constitute 
life  from  those  which  do  not.  In  like  manner  we 
are  ignorant  of  the  inner  character  of  the  cell 
changes  which  produce  senescence.  But  should 
we  be  better  fitted  to  form  a  correct  concep- 
tion of  the  life-history  of  complex  organisms  if 
we  refused  to  recognise  any  cause  of  death  but 
accident  or  disease?  I  admit,  of  course,  that  the 
term  "decadence"  is  less  precise  than  "old  age," 
as  sociology  deals  with  organisms  far  less  definite 
than  biology.    I  admit  also  that  it  explains  noth- 


32  DECADENCE 

ing.  If  its  use  is  to  be  justified  at  all,  the  justifica- 
tion must  depend  not  on  the  fact  that  it  supplies 
an  explanation,  but  on  the  fact  that  it  inales  out 
explanations  which  are  obvious  but  inadequate. 
And  this  may  be  a  service  of  some  importance. 
The  facile  generalisations  with  which  we  so  often 
season  the  study  of  dry  historic  fact;  the  habits  of 
political  discussion  which  induce  us  to  catalogue 
for  purposes  of  debate  the  outward  signs  that  dis- 
tinguish (as  we  are  prone  to  think)  the  standing 
from  the  falling  state,  hide  the  obscurer,  but  more 
potent,  forces  which  silently  prepare  the  fate  of 
empires.  National  character  is  subtle  and  elusive; 
not  to  be  expressed  in  statistics  nor  measured  by 
the  rough  methods  which  sufiice  the  practical  mor- 
alist or  statesman.  And  when  through  an  ancient 
and  still  powerful  state  there  spreads  a  mood  of 
deep  discouragement,  when  the  reaction  against 
recurring  ills  grows  feebler,  and  the  ship  rises  less 
buoyantly  to  each  succeeding  wave,  when  learning 
languishes,  enterprise  slackens,  and  vigour  ebbs 
away,  then,  as  I  think,  there  is  present  some 
process  of  social  degeneration  which  we  must  per- 
force recognise,  and  which,  pending  a  satisfactory 
analysis,  may  conveniently  be  distinguished  by  the 
name  of  "decadence." 

I  am  well  aware  that  though  the  space  I  have 
just  devoted  to  the  illustration  of  my  theme  pro- 


DECADENCE  33 

vided  by  Roman  history  is  out  of  all  proportion 
to  the  general  plan  of  this  address,  yet  the  treat- 
ment of  it  is  inadequate  and  perhaps  unconvincing. 
But  those  who  are  most  reluctant  to  admit  that 
decay,  as  distinguished  from  misfortune,  may 
lower  the  general  level  of  civilisation,  can  hardly 
deny  that  in  many  cases  that  level  may  for  indefi- 
nite periods  show  no  tendency  to  rise.  If  de- 
cadence be  unknown,  is  not  progress  exceptional? 
Consider  the  changing  politics  of  the  unchanging 
East.^  Is  it  not  true  that  there,  while  wars  and 
revolutions,  dynastic  and  religious,  have  shattered 
ancient  states  and  brought  new  ones  into  being, 
every  community,  as  soon  as  it  has  risen  above  the 
tribal  and  nomad  condition,  adopts  with  the  rarest 
exceptions  a  form  of  government  which,  from  its 
very  generality  in  Eastern  lands,  we  habitually 
call  an  "oriental  despotism"?  We  may  crystallise 
and  re-crystallise  a  soluble  salt  as  often  as  we 
please,  the  new  crystals  will  always  resemble  the 
old  ones.  The  crystals,  indeed,  may  be  of  different 
sizes,  their  component  molecules  may  occupy 
different  positions  within  the  crystalline  structure, 
but  the  structure  itself  will  be  of  one  immutable 

^  The  "East"  is  a  term  most  loosely  used.  It  does  not 
here  include  China  and  Japan  and  does  include  part  of  Africa. 
The  observations  which  follow  have  no  reference  either  to  the 
Jews  or  to  the  commercial  aristocracies  of  Phoenician  origin. 


34  DECADENCE 

pattern.  So  it  is,  or  seems  to  be,  with  these 
oriental  states.  They  rise,  in  turn,  upon  the  ruins 
of  their  predecessors,  themselves  predestined  to 
perish  by  a  like  fate.  But  whatever  their  origin  or 
history,  they  are  always  either  autocracies  or 
aggregations  of  autocracies;  and  no  diiFerences  of 
race,  of  creed,  or  of  language  seem  sufficient  to 
vary  the  violent  monotony  of  their  internal  history. 
In  the  eighteenth  century  theorists  were  content  to 
attribute  the  political  servitude  of  the  Eastern 
world  to  the  unscrupulous  machinations  of  tyrants 
and  their  tools.  And  such  explanations  are  good 
as  far  as  they  go.  But  this,  in  truth,  is  not  very 
far.  Intrigue,  assassination,  ruthless  repression, 
the  whole  machinery  of  despotism  supply  particu- 
lar explanations  of  particular  incidents.  They  do 
not  supply  the  general  explanation  of  the  general 
phenomenon.  They  tell  you  how  this  ruler  or  that 
obtained  absolute  power.  They  do  not  tell  you 
why  every  ruler  is  absolute.  Nor  can  I  furnish  the 
answer.  The  fact  remains  that  over  large  and  rela- 
tively civilised  portions  of  the  world  popular 
government  is  profoundly  unpopular,  in  the  sense 
that  it  is  no  natural  or  spontaneous  social  growth. 
Political  absolutism,  not  political  freedom,  is  the 
familar  weed  of  the  country.  Despots  change  but 
despotism  remains ;  and  if  through  alien  influences, 
like  those  exercised  by  Greek  cities  in  Asia,  or  by 


DECADENCE  85 

British  rule  in  India,  the  type  is  modified,  it  may 
well  be  doubted  whether  the  modification  could 
long  survive  the  moment  when  its  sustaining  cause 
was  withdrawn. 

Now  it  would  almost  seem  as  if  in  lands  where 
this  political  type  was  normal  a  certain  level  of 
culture  (not  of  course  the  same  in  each  case)  could 
not  permanently  be  overpassed.  If  under  the  ex- 
citement of  religion  or  conquest,  or  else  through 
causes  more  complicated  and  more  obscure,  this 
limit  has  sometimes  been  left  behind,  reaction  has 
always  followed,  and  decadence  set  in.  Many  per- 
sons indeed,  as  I  have  already  observed,  take  this 
as  a  matter  of  course.  It  seems  to  them  the  most 
natural  thing  in  the  world  that  the  glories  of  the 
Eastern  Khahfate  should  decay,  and  that  the 
Moors  in  Morocco  should  lose  even  the  memory  of 
the  learning  and  the  arts  possessed  but  three  cen- 
turies ago  by  the  Moors  in  Spain.  To  me  it  seems 
mysterious.  But  whether  it  be  easy  of  compre- 
hension or  difficult,  does  it  not  furnish  food  for 
disquieting  reflection?  If  there  are  whole  groups 
of  nations  capable  on  their  own  initiative  of  a 
certain  measure  of  civilisation,  but  capable  ap- 
parently of  no  more,  and  if  below  them  again  there 
are  (as  I  suppose)  other  races  who  seem  incapable 
of  either  creating  a  civilisation  of  their  own,  or  of 
preserving  unaided  a  civilisation  impressed  upon 


36  DECADENCE 

them  from  without,  by  what  right  do  we  assume 
that  no  impossible  limits  bar  the  path  of  Western 
progress?  Those  limits  may  not  yet  be  in  sight. 
Surely  they  are  not.  But  does  not  a  survey  of 
history  suggest  that  somewhere  in  the  dim  future 
they  await  our  approach? 

It  may  be  replied  that  the  history  of  Rome  on 
which  I  dwelt  a  moment  ago,  shows  that  arrested 
progress,  and  even  decadence,  may  be  but  the  pre- 
lude to  a  new  period  of  vigorous  growth.  So  that 
even  those  races  or  nations  which  seem  frozen  into 
eternal  immobility  may  base  upon  experience  their 
hopes  of  an  awakening  spring. 

I  am  not  sure,  however,  that  this  is  the  true 
interpretation  of  the  facts.  There  is  no  spectacle 
indeed  in  all  history  more  impressive  than  the  thick 
darkness  settling  down  over  Western  Europe, 
blotting  out  all  but  a  faint  and  distorted  vision  of 
Grasco-Roman  culture,  and  then,  as  it  slowly  rises, 
unveiling  the  variety  and  rich  promise  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  But  I  do  not  think  we  should  make 
this  unique  phenomenon  support  too  weighty  a 
load  of  theory.  I  should  not  infer  from  it  that 
when  some  wave  of  civilisation  has  apparently 
spent  its  force,  we  have  a  right  to  regard  its  with- 
drawing sweep  as  but  the  prelude  to  a  new  advance. 
I  should  rather  conjecture  that  in  this  particular 
case  we  should  find,  among  other  subtle  causes  of 


DECADENCE  87 

decadence,  some  obscure  disharmony  between  the 
Imperial  system  and  the  temperament  of  the 
West,  undetected  even  by  those  who  suffered  from 
it.  That  system,  though  accepted  with  content- 
ment and  even  with  pride,  though  in  the  days  of 
its  greatness  it  brought  civilisation,  commerce,  and 
security  in  its  train,  must  surely  have  lacked  some 
elements  which  are  needed  to  foster  among  Teu- 
tons, Celts,  and  Iberians  the  qualities,  whatever 
these  may  be,  on  which  sustained  progress  depends. 
It  was  perhaps  too  oriental  for  the  Occident,  and 
it  certainly  became  more  oriental  as  time  went  on. 
In  the  East  it  was,  comparatively  speaking,  suc- 
cessful. If  there  was  no  progress,  decadence  was 
slow;  and  but  for  what  Western  Europe  did,  and 
what  it  failed  to  do,  during  the  long  struggle  with 
militant  Mahomedanism,  there  might  still  be  an 
Empire  in  the  East,  largely  Asiatic  in  population. 
Christian  in  religion,  Greek  in  culture,  Roman  by 
political  descent. 

Had  this  been  the  course  of  events  large  por- 
tions of  mankind  would  doubtless  have  been  much 
better  governed  than  they  are.  It  is  not  so  clear 
that  they  would  have  been  more  "progressive." 
Progi'css  is  with  the  West — with  communities  of 
the  European  type.  And  if  their  energy  of  de- 
velopment is  some  day  to  be  exhausted,  who  can 
believe   that  there   remains   any   external   source 


38  DECADENCE 

from  which  it  can  be  renewed?  Where  are  the 
untried  races  competent  to  construct  out  of  the 
ruined  fragments  of  our  civilisation  a  new  and 
better  habitation  for  the  spirit  of  man?  They  do 
not  exist;  and  if  the  world  is  again  to  be  buried 
under  a  barbaric  flood,  it  will  not  be  like  that  which 
fertilised,  though  it  first  destroyed,  the  western 
provinces  of  Rome,  but  like  that  which  in  Asia 
submerged  for  ever  the  last  traces  of  Hellenic 
culture. 

We  are  thus  brought  back  to  the  question  I  put 
a  few  moments  since:  What  grounds  are  there  for 
supposing  that  we  can  escape  the  fate  to  which 
other  races  have  had  to  submit?  If  for  periods 
which,  measured  on  the  historic  scale,  are  of  great 
duration,  communities  which  have  advanced  to  a 
certain  point  appear  able  to  advance  no  further; 
if  civilisations  wear  out,  and  races  become  effete, 
why  should  we  expect  to  progress  indefinitely,  why 
for  us  alone  is  the  doom  of  man  to  be  reversed? 

To  these  questions  I  have  no  very  satisfactory 
answers  to  give,  nor  do  I  believe  that  our  knowl- 
edge of  national  or  social  psychology  is  sufficient 
to  make  a  satisfactory  answer  possible.  Some 
purely  tentative  observations  on  the  point  may, 
however,  furnish  a  fitting  conclusion  to  an  address 
which  has  been  tentative  throughout,   and  aims 


DECADENCE  39 

rather  at  suggesting  trains  of  thought,  than  at 
completing  them. 

I  assume  that  the  factors  which  combine  to  make 
each  generation  what  it  is  at  the  moment  of  its 
entrance  into  adult  life  are  in  the  main  two-fold. 
The  one  produces  the  raw  material  of  society,  the 
process  of  manufacture  is  effected  by  the  other. 
The  first  is  physiological  or  rather  psycho-physical 
inheritance,  the  second  is  the  inheritance  partly  of 
external  conditions  of  life,  partly  of  beliefs,^  tra- 
ditions, sentiments,  customs,  laws,  and  organisa- 
tion— all  that  constitute  the  social  surroundings  in 
which  men  grow  up  to  maturity. 

I  hazard  no  conjecture  as  to  the  share  borne 
respectively  by  these  two  kinds  of  cause  in  pro- 
ducing their  joint  result.  Nor  are  we  likely  to 
obtain  satisfactory  evidence  on  the  subject  till,  in 
the  interests  of  science,  two  communities  of  differ- 
ent blood  and  different  traditions  consent  to 
exchange  their  children  at  birth  by  a  universal 
process  of  reciprocal  adoption.  But  even  in  the 
absence  of  so  heroic  an  experiment,  it  seems  safe 
to  say  that  the  mobility  which  makes  possible 
either  progress  or  decadence,  resides  rather  in  the 
causes  grouped  under  the  second  head  than  in  the 
psycho-physical  material  on  which  education,  in  the 
widest  sense  of  that  ambiguous  term,  has  got  to 

^  Beliefs  include  knowledge. 


40  DECADENCE 

work.  If,  as  I  suppose,  acquired  qualities  ^re  not 
inherited,  the  only  causes  which  could  fundamen- 
tally modify  the  psycho-physical  character  of  any 
particular  community  are  its  intermixture  with 
alien  races  through  slavery,  conquest,  or  immigra- 
tion; or  else  new  conditions  which  varied  the  rela- 
tive proportions  in  which  diiferent  sections  of  the 
populations  contributed  to  its  total  numbers.  If, 
for  example,  the  more  successful  members  of  the 
community  had  smaller  families  than  the  less  suc- 
cessful; or  if  medical  administration  succeeded  in 
extinguishing  maladies  to  which  persons  of  a  par- 
ticular constitution  were  specially  liable;  or  if  one 
strain  in  a  mixed  race  had  a  larger  birth-rate  than 
another — in  these  cases  and  in  others  like  them, 
there  would  doubtless  be  a  change  in  the  inherited 
factor  of  national  character.  But  such  changes  are 
not  likely,  I  suppose,  to  be  considerable,  except, 
perhaps,  when  they  are  due  to  the  mixture  of  races 
— and  that  only  in  new  countries  whose  economic 
opportimities  tempt  immigrants  widely  differing  in 
capacity  for  culture  from  those  whose  citizenship 
they  propose  to  share. 

The  flexible  element  in  any  society,  that  which 
is  susceptible  of  progress  or  decadence,  must 
therefore  be  looked  for  rather  in  the  physical  and 
psychical  conditions  affecting  the  life  of  its  com- 
ponent units,  than  in  their  inherited  constitution. 


DECADENCE  41 

This  last  rather  supplies  a  limit  to  variations  than 
an  element  which  does  itself  vary,  though  from  this 
point  of  view  its  importance  is  capital.  I  at  least 
find  it  quite  impossible  to  believe  that  any  attempt 
to  provide  widely  different  races  with  an  identi- 
cal environment — political,  religious,  educational, 
what  you  will — can  ever  make  them  alike.  They 
have  been  different  since  history  began;  different 
they  are  destined  to  remain  through  future  periods 
of  comparable  duration. 

But  though  the  advance  of  each  community  is 
thus  limited  by  its  inherited  aptitudes,  I  do  not 
suppose  that  those  limits  have  ever  been  reached 
by  its  unaided  efforts.  In  the  cases  where  a  for- 
ward movement  has  died  away,  the  pause  must  in 
part  be  due  to  arrested  development  in  the  vari- 
able, not  to  a  fixed  resistance  in  the  unchanging 
factor  of  national  character.  Either  external  con- 
ditions are  unfavourable;  or  the  sentiments,  cus- 
toms and  beliefs  which  make  society  possible  have 
hardened  into  shapes  which  make  its  further  self- 
development  impossible;  or  through  mere 
weariness  of  spirit  the  community  resigns  itself  to 
a  contented,  or  perhaps  a  discontented,  stagnation; 
or  it  shatters  itself  in  pursuit  of  impossible  ideals, 
or,  for  other  and  obscurer  reasons,  flags  in  its  en- 
deavours and  falls  short  of  possible  achievement. 


42  DECADENCE 

Now  I  am  quite  unable  to  offer  any  such 
general  analysis  of  the  causes  by  which  these  hin- 
drancei  to  progress  are  produced  or  removed  as 
would  furnish  a  reply  to  my  question.  But  it  may 
be  worth  noting  that  a  social  force  has  come  into 
being,  new  in  magnitude  if  not  in  kind,  which  must 
favourably  modify  such  hindrances  as  come  under 
all  but  the  last  of  the  divisions  in  which  I  have 
roughly  arranged  them.  This  force  is  the  modern 
alliance  between  pure  science  and  industry.  That 
on  this  we  must  mainly  rely  for  the  improvement 
of  the  material  conditions  under  which  societies  live 
is  in  my  opinion  obvious,  although  no  one  would 
conjecture  it  from  a  historic  survey  of  political 
controversy.  Its  direct  moral  effects  are  less 
obvious;  indeed  there  are  many  most  excellent 
people  who  would  altogether  deny  their  existence. 
To  regard  it  as  a  force  fitted  to  rouse  and  sustain 
the  energies  of  nations  would  seem  to  them  absurd ; 
for  this  would  be  to  rank  it  with  those  other  forces 
which  have  most  deeply  stirred  the  emotions  of 
great  communities,  have  urged  them  to  the  great- 
est exertions,  have  released  them  most  effectually 
from  the  benumbing  fetters  of  merely  personal 
preoccupations — it  would  be  to  rank  it  with  re- 
ligion, patriotism,  and  politics.  Industrial  expan- 
sion under  scientific  inspiration,  so  far  from  deserv- 
ing praise  like  this,  is,  in  their  view,  at  best  but  a 


DECADENCE  43 

new  source  of  material  well-being,  at  worst  the 
prolific  parent  of  physical  ugliness  in  many  forms, 
machine-made  wares,  smoky  cities,  polluted  rivers 
and  desecrated  landscapes — appropriately  asso- 
ciated with  materialism  and  greed. 

I  believe  this  view  to  be  utterly  misleading,  con- 
founding accident  with  essence,  transient  accom- 
paniments with  inseparable  characteristics.  Should 
we  dream  of  thus  judging  the  other  great  social 
forces  of  which  I  have  spoken?  Ai'e  we  to  ignore 
what  religion  has  done  for  the  world  because  it 
has  been  the  fruitful  excuse  for  the  narrowest 
bigotries  and  the  most  cruel  persecutions?  Are  we 
to  underrate  the  worth  of  politics  because  politics 
may  mean  no  more  than  the  mindless  clash  of  fac- 
tions, or  the  barren  exchange  of  one  set  of  tyrants 
or  jobbers  for  another?  Is  patriotism  to  be 
despised  because  its  manifestations  have  been 
sometimes  vulgar,  sometimes  selfish,  sometimes 
brutal,  sometimes  criminal?  Estimates  like  these 
seem  to  me  worse  than  useless.  All  great  social 
forces  are  not  merely  capable  of  perversion:  they 
are  constantly  perverted.  Yet  were  they  elimi- 
nated from  our  social  system,  were  each  man  (act- 
ing on  the  advice  which  Voltaire  gave  but  never 
followed)  to  disinterest  himself  in  everjrthing 
beyond   the  limits   of  his   own   cabbage  garden, 


44  DECADENCE 

decadence,  I  take  it,  would  have  already  far  ad- 
vanced. 

But  if  the  proposition  I  am  defending  may  be 
wrongly  criticised,  it  is  still  more  likely  to  be 
wrongly  praised.  To  some  it  will  commend  itself 
as  a  eulogy  on  an  industrial  as  distinguished  from 
a  military  civilisation;  as  a  suggestion  that  in  the 
peaceful  pursuit  of  wealth  is  to  be  found  a  val- 
uable social  tonic.  This  may  possibly  be  true, 
but  it  is  not  my  contention.  In  talking  of  the 
alliance  between  industry  and  science  my  emphasis 
is  at  least  as  much  on  the  word  science  as  on  the 
word  industry.  I  am  not  concerned  now  with  the 
proportion  of  the  population  devoted  to  productive 
labour,  or  the  esteem  in  which  they  are  held.  It 
is  on  the  effects  which  I  believe  are  following, 
and  are  going  in  yet  larger  measure  to  follow, 
from  the  intimate  relation  between  scientific  dis- 
covery and  industrial  efficiency,  that  I  most  desire 
to  insist. 

Do  you  then,  it  will  be  asked,  so  highly  rate  the 
utilitarian  aspect  of  research  as  to  regard  it  as  a 
source,  not  merely  of  material  convenience,  but  of 
spiritual  elevation?  Is  it  seriously  to  be  ranked 
with  religion  and  patriotism  as  an  important  instru- 
ment for  raising  men's  lives  above  what  is  small, 
personal,  and  self-centred  ?  Does  it  not  rather  per- 
vert pure  knowledge  into  a  new  contrivance  for 


DECADENCE  45 

making  money,  and  give  little  needed  encourage- 
ment to  the  "growing  materialism  of  the  age"? 

I  do  not  myself  believe  that  this  age  is  either 
less  spiritual  or  more  sordid  than  its  predecessors. 
I  believe,  indeed,  precisely  the  reverse.  But  how- 
ever this  may  be,  is  it  not  plain  that  if  a  society  is 
to  be  moVed  by  the  remote  speculations  of  isolated 
thinkers  it  can  only  be  on  condition  that  their 
isolation  is  not  complete?  Some  point  of  contact 
they  must  have  with  the  world  in  which  they  live; 
and  if  their  influence  is  to  be  based  on  widespread 
sympathy,  the  contact  must  be  in  a  region  where 
there  can  be,  if  not  full  mutual  comprehension,  at 
least  a  large  measure  of  practical  agreement 
and  willing  co-operation.  Philosophy  has  never 
touched  the  mass  of  men  except  through  religion. 
And,  though  the  parallel  is  not  complete,  it  is  safe 
to  say  that  science  will  never  touch  them  unaided 
by  its  practical  applications.  Its  wonders  may  be 
catalogued  for  purposes  of  education,  they  may 
be  illustrated  by  arresting  experiments,  by  num- 
bers and  magnitudes  which  startle  or  fatigue  the 
imagination;  but  they  will  form  no  familiar  por- 
tion of  the  intellectual  furniture  of  ordinary  men 
unless  they  be  connected,  however  remotely,  with 
the  conduct  of  ordinary  life.  Critics  have  made 
merry  over  the  naive  self-importance  which  rep- 
resented the  human  race  as  the  centre  and  final 


46  DECADENCE 

cause  of  the  universe,  and  conceived  the  stupendous 
mechanism  of  Nature  as  primarily  designed  to  sat- 
isfy its  wants  and  minister  to  its  entertainment. 
But  there  is  another,  and  an  opposite,  danger  into 
which  it  is  possible  to  fall.  The  material  world, 
howsoever  it  may  have  gained  in  sublimity,  has, 
under  the  touch  of  science,  lost  (so  to  speak)  in 
domestic  charm.  Its  profounder  secrets  seem  so 
remote  from  the  concerns  of  men  that  in  the 
majority  they  rouse  no  serious  interest;  while  of 
the  minority  who  are  fascinated  by  its  marvels,  not 
a  few  will  be  chilled  by  its  impersonal  and  indiffer- 
ent immensity. 

For  this  latter  mood  only  religion  or  religious 
philosophy  can  supply  a  cure.  But  for  the  former, 
the  appropriate  remedy  is  the  perpetual  stimulus 
which  the  influence  of  science  on  the  business  of 
mankind  off'ers  to  their  sluggish  curiosity.  And 
even  now  I  believe  this  influence  to  be  underrated. 
If  in  the  last  hundred  years  the  whole  material 
setting  of  civilised  life  has  altered,  we  owe  it 
neither  to  politicians  nor  to  pohtical  institutions. 
We  owe  it  to  the  combined  eff*orts  of  those  who 
have  advanced  science  and  those  who  have  applied 
it.  If  our  outlook  upon  the  Universe  has  suffered 
modifications  in  detail  so  great  and  so  numerous 
that  they  amount  collectively  to  a  revolution,  it  is 
to  men  of  science  we  owe  it,  not  to  theologians  or 


DECADENCE  47 

philosophers.  On  these,  indeed,  new  and  weighty 
responsibihties  are  being  cast.  They  have  to  har- 
monise and  to  co-ordinate,  to  prevent  the  new  from 
being  narrow,  to  preserve  unharmed  the  valuable 
essence  of  what  is  old.  But  science  is  the  great 
instrument  of  social  change,  all  the  greater  because 
its  object  is  not  change  but  knowledge;  and  its 
silent  appropriation  of  this  dominant  function, 
amid  the  din  of  political  and  religious  strife,  is  the 
most  vital  of  all  the  revolutions  which  have  marked 
the  development  of  modern  civilisation. 

It  may  seem  fanciful  to  find  in  a  single  recent 
aspect  of  this  revolution  an  influence  which  re- 
sembles religion  or  patriotism  in  its  appeals  to 
the  higher  side  of  ordinary  characters — especially 
since  we  are  accustomed  to  regard  the  appropria- 
tion by  industry  of  scientific  discoveries  merely  as 
a  means  of  multiplying  the  material  conveniences 
of  life.  But  if  it  be  remembered  that  this  process 
brings  vast  sections  of  every  industrial  community 
into  admiring  relation  with  the  highest  intellectual 
achievement  and  the  most  disinterested  search  for 
truth ;  that  those  who  live  by  directly  ministering  to 
the  common  wants  of  average  humanity  lean  for 
support  on  those  who  search  among  the  deepest 
mysteries  of  Nature;  that  this  dependence  is  re- 
warded by  growing  success;  that  success  gives  in 
its  turn  an  incentive  to  individual  effort  in  no  wise 


48  DECADENCE 

to  be  measured  by  personal  expectation  of  gain; 
that  the  energies  thus  aroused  may  affect  the  whole 
character  of  the  community,  spreading  the  be- 
neficent contagion  of  hope  and  high  endeavour 
through  channels  scarcely  known,  to  workers  ^  in 
fields  the  most  remote ;  if  all  this  be  borne  in  mind 
the  relation  of  science  and  industry  may  perhaps 
seem  not  unworthy  of  the  place  among  moral  anti- 
septics which  I  have  tentatively  assigned  to  it. 

But  I  do  not  offer  this  speculation,  whatever  be 
its  worth,  as  an  answer  to  my  original  question. 
It  is  but  an  aid  to  optimism,  not  a  reply  to  pes- 
simism. Such  a  reply  can  only  be  given  by  a 
sociology  which  has  arrived  at  trustworthy  conclu- 
sions on  the  life-history  of  different  types  of  society, 
and  has  risen  above  the  empirical  and  merely  in- 
terrogative point  of  view  which,  for  want  of  a 
better,  I  have  adopted  in  this  address.  No  such 
sociology  exists  at  present,  or  seems  likely  soon 
to  be  created.  In  its  absence  the  conclusions  at 
which  I  provisionally  arrive  are  that  we  cannot 
regard  decadence  and  arrested  development  as  less 
normal  in  human  communities  than  progress: 
that  the  internal  causes  by  which,  in  any  given 
community,  progress  is  encouraged,  hindered,  or 
reversed,  lie  to  a  great  extent  beyond  the  field  of 
ordinary  political  vision,  and  are  not  easily  ex- 

*  See  note  at  the  end  of  the  paper. 


DECADENCE  49 

pressed  in  current  political  terminology;  that  the 
influence  which  a  superior  civilisation,  acting  from 
without,  may  have  in  advancing  an  inferior  one, 
though  often  beneficent,  is  not  likely  to  be  perma- 
nent or  (so  to  speak)  self-supporting,  unless  the 
character  of  the  civilisation  be  in  harmony  both 
with  the  acquired  temperament  and  with  the  innate 
capacities  of  those  who  have  been  induced  to  accept 
it;  that  as  regards  those  nations  which  still  advance 
in  virtue  of  their  own  inherent  energies,  though 
time  has  brought  perhaps  new  causes  of  disquiet, 
it  has  brought  also  new  grounds  of  hope;  and  that 
whatever  be  the  perils  in  front  of  us,  there  are,  so 
far,  no  symptoms  either  of  pause  or  of  regression 
in  the  onward  movement  which  for  more  than  a 
thousand  years  has  been  characteristic  of  Western 
civilisation. 

Note  to  Page  48 

This  remark  arises  out  of  a  train  of  thought  suggested 
by  two  questions  which  are  very  pertinent  to  the  subject 
of  the  Address. 

(1)  Is  a  due  succession  of  men  above  the  average  in 
original  capacity  necessary  to  maintain  social  progress? 
and 

(2)  If  so,  can  we  discover  any  law  according  to  which 
such  men  are  produced? 

I  entertain  no  doubt  myself  that  the  answer  to  the  first 
question  should  be  in  the  affirmative.  Democracy  is  an 
excellent  thing;  but,  though  quite  consistent  with  prog- 


50  DECADENCE 

ress,  it  is  not  progressive  per  se.  Its  value  is  regulative 
not  dynamic;  and  if  it  meant  (as  it  never  does)  substan- 
tial uniformity  instead  of  legal  equality,  we  should  be- 
come fossilised  at  once.  Movement  may  be  controlled  or 
checked  by  the  many ;  it  is  initiated  and  made  effective  by 
the  few.  If  (for  the  sake  of  illustration)  we  suppose 
mental  capacity  in  all  its  many  forms  to  be  mensur- 
able and  commensurable,  and  then  imagine  two  societies 
possessing  the  same  average  capacity — ^but  an  average 
made  up  in  one  case  of  equal  units,  in  the  other  of  a 
majority  slightly  below  the  average  and  a  minority  much 
above  it — few  could  doubt  that  the  second,  not  the  first, 
would  show  the  greatest  aptitude  for  movement.  It  might 
go  wrong,  but  it  would  go. 

The  second  question — how  is  this  originality  (in  its 
higher  manifestations  called  genius)  effectively  produced? 
— is  not  so  simple. 

Excluding  education  in  its  narrowest  sense — ^which  few 
would  regard  as  having  much  to  do  with  the  matter — the 
only  alternatives  seem  to  be  the  following: 

Original  capacity  may  be  no  more  than  one  of  the  ordi- 
nary variations  incidental  to  heredity.  A  community 
may  breed  a  minority  thus  exceptionally  gifted,  as  it 
breeds  a  minority  of  men  over  six  feet  six.  There  may  be 
an  average  decennial  output  of  congenital  geniuses  as 
there  is  an  average  decennial  output  of  congenital  idiots 
— though  the  number  is  likely  to  be  smaller. 

But  if  this  be  the  sole  cause  of  the  phenomenon,  why 
does  the  same  race  apparently  produce  many  men  of 
genius  in  one  generation  and  few  in  another?  Why  are 
years  of  abundance  so  often  followed  by  long  periods  of 
sterility  ? 


DECADENCE  51 

The  most  obvious  explanation  of  this  would  seem  to  be 
that  in  some  periods  circumstances  give  many  openings 
to  genius,  in  some  periods  few.  The  genius  is  constantly 
produced;  but  it  is  only  occasionally  recognised. 

In  this  there  must  be  some  truth.  A  mob  orator  in 
Turkey,  a  religious  reformer  in  seventeenth-century 
Spain,  a  military  genius  in  the  Sandwich  islands,  would 
hardly  get  their  chance.  Yet  the  theory  of  opportunity 
can  scarcely  be  reckoned  a  complete  explanation,  for  it 
leaves  unaccounted  for  the  variety  of  ability  which  has 
in  some  countries  marked  epochs  of  vigorous  national 
development.  Athens  in  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries, 
Florence  in  the  thirteenth,  fourteenth,  fifteenth,  and  early 
sixteenth  centuries,  Holland  in  the  later  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centur^s,  are  typical  examples.  In  such 
periods  the  opportunities  of  statesmen,  soldiers,  orators, 
and  diplomatists,  may  have  been  specially  frequent.  But 
whence  came  the  poets,  the  sculptors,  the  painters,  the 
philosophers  and  the  men  of  letters?  What  peculiar 
opportunities  had  they? 

The  only  explanation,  if  we  reject  the  idea  of  a  mere 
coincidence,  seems  to  be  that,  quite  apart  from  oppor- 
tunity, the  exceptional  stir  and  fervour  of  national  life 
evokes  or  may  evoke  qualities  which  in  ordinary  times  lie 
dormant,  unknown  even  to  their  possessors.  The  po- 
tential Miltons  are  "mute"  and  "inglorious,"  not  because 
they  cannot  find  a  publisher,  but  because  they  have  noth- 
ing they  want  to  publish.  They  lack  the  kind  of  inspira- 
tion which,  on  this  view,  flows  from  social  surroundings 
where  great  things,  though  of  quite  another  kind,  are 
being  done  and  thought. 

If  this  theory  be  true  (and  it  is  not  without  its  diffi- 


52  DECADENCE 

culties),  one  would  like  to  know  whether  these  undoubted 
outbursts  of  originality  in  the  higher  and  rarer  form  of 
genius  are  symptomatic  of  a  general  rise  in  the  number 
of  persons  exhibiting  original  capacity  of  a  more  ordi- 
nary type.  If  so,  then  the  conclusion  would  seem  to  be 
that  some  kind  of  widespread  exhilaration  or  excitement 
is  required  in  order  to  enable  any  community  to  extract 
the  best  results  from  the  raw  material  transmitted  to  it 
by  natural  inheritance. 

Note  II  (1920) 

Long  subsequent  to  the  writing  of  this  Lecture  I  was 
given,  through  the  courtesy  of  Professor  Simkhovitch  of 
Columbia  University,  an  opportunity  of  reading  some  re- 
sults of  his  investigations  into  the  gradual  degradation 
in  the  productiveness  of  Mediterranean  lands  during  the 
later  Roman  Republic  and  the  Empire.  I  am  not  qualified 
to  form  any  independent  judgment  on  the  value  of  his 
conclusions.  But  his  argument  has  deeply  impressed  me ; 
and  I  am  convinced  that  historians  should  give  more  at- 
tention than  they  have  commonly  cared  to  bestow  upon 
the  social  and  political  effects  of  soil  deterioration  in 
ancient  and  medieval  times.  It  may  well  be  that  this 
purely  physical  cause  had  a  greater  share  than  we  have 
been  accustomed  to  suppose  in  producing  what  I  have 
always  deemed  the  most  mysterious  movement  in  history 
— the  slow  "decline  and  fall"  of  the  Roman  Empire. 

Note  III  (1920) 

The  reader  of  this  lecture  may  perhaps  think  that 
I   am   oblivious   of  all   the   ambiguities    and   obscurities 


DECADENCE  53 

wihich  bfeset  such  words  as  ^'Progress"  and  "Decad- 
ence." This  is  not  so.  It  must  however  suffice,  in  the 
present  state  of  our  knowledge,  that  the  terms  convey, 
though  loosely,  more  or  less  intelligible  conceptions.  Dis- 
cussion may  gradually  make  them  more  precise:  I  have 
taken  them  as  I  found  them. 


PART  ONE:    SPECULATIVE 

II:    BEAUTY— AND  THE  CRITICISM 
OF  BEAUTY 


n 


BEAUTY:  AND  THE  CRITICISM  OF 
BEAUTY  * 


The  theme  of  this  paper  is  beauty  and  the  criti- 
cism of  beauty;  assthetic  excellence  and  its  analy- 
sis. From  prehistoric  times  men  have  occupied 
themselves  in  producing  works  of  art:  since  the 
time  of  Aristotle  they  have  spent  learned  energy 
in  commenting  on  them.  How  much  are  we  the 
wiser?  What  real  insight  do  the  commentaries 
give  us  into  the  qualities  which  produce  aesthetic 
pleasure,  or  into  the  marks  which  distinguish  good 
art  from  bad? 

Any  man  desirous  of  obtaining  answers  to  ques- 
tions like  these  would  naturally  turn  in  the  first 
place  to  the  history  of  criticism,  and  if  he  did  so 
he  would  certainly  be  well  rewarded.  It  may  be 
doubted,  however,  whether  the  reward  would  con- 
sist in  the  satisfaction  of  his  curiosity.  For  in  pro- 
portion as  criticism  has  endeavoured  to  establish 

*  Romanes  Lecture,  Oxford  University,  November  24,  1909- 

67 


58  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

principles  of  composition,  to  lay  down  laws  of 
Beauty,  to  fix  criterions  of  excellence,  so  it  seems 
to  me  to  have  failed;  its  triumphs,  and  they  are 
great,  have  been  won  on  a  different  field.  The 
critics  who  have  dealt  most  successfully  with 
theory  have  dealt  with  it  destructively.  They  have 
demolished  the  dogmas  of  their  predecessors,  but 
have  advanced  few  dogmas  of  their  own.  So  that, 
after  some  twenty-three  centuries  of  aesthetic 
speculation,  we  are  still  without  any  accepted  body 
of  aesthetic  doctrine. 

Perhaps  the  most  perverse  of  all  forms  of 
critical  theory  is  that  which  flourished  so  luxuri- 
antly immediately  after  the  revival  of  learning. 
It  professed  to  base  itself  on  experience.  Accept- 
ing the  classical  masterpieces  as  supreme  models 
of  excellence,  it  asked  how  they  were  made.  To 
examine  minutely  the  procedure  of  the  great 
classical  writers,  to  embody  their  example  in  rules, 
to  standardise  their  practice,  seemed  the  obvious 
method  of  enabling  the  moderns  to  acquire  some 
tincture  of  the  literary  merits  so  ardently  admired 
in  the  ancients :  and  the  method  was  applied  with  a 
simple-minded  consistency  which  to  the  reader  of 
the  twentieth  century  seems  both  pathetic  and 
ludicrous.  "If  you  would  rival  antiquity,"  said  the 
critics,  "imitate  it.  If  you  would  imitate  it,  note 
well  its  methods.    When  these  have  been  thor- 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  59 

oughly  mastered,  it  should  be  as  easy  to  frame 
recipes  for  writing  an  epic,  as  for  compounding  a 
plum-pudding" — and  they  framed  them  accord- 
ingly.* 

It  soon  became  evident,  of  course,  that  such  a 
procedure  was  futile.  The  idea  that  the  essential 
excellence  of  great  literature  could  be  extracted  by 
this  process  of  learned  analysis  was  too  crude  to 
last.  Yet  rules  of  composition,  supposed  to  be  of 
classical  authority,  did  not  therefore  at  once  fall 
into  disrepute.  A  writer  might,  to  be  sure,  ignore 
them;  but  he  did  so  at  his  peril.  If  he  failed,  his 
failure  was  unredeemed.  He  could  not  even  claim 
to  be  "correct."  If  his  talents  compelled  success, 
he  was  classed  as  an  "irregular  genius,"  to  be  reluc- 
tantly allowed  a  licence  forbidden  to  ordinary 
mankind. 

In  the  criticism  of  Music  and  Painting  similar 
tendencies  have  shown  themselves  from  time  to 
time;  and  if  antiquity  had  left  us  masterpieces  in 
these  arts,  and  if  Aristotle  had  effectively  com- 
mented on  them,  the  failure  of  post-renaissance 
criticism  might  have  been  as  prominent  in  these 
departments  of  aesthetics  as  it  has  been  in  litera- 
ture. As  it  is,  the  failure  is  the  same  in  kind.  The 
study    of    ancient    sculpture    gave    rise    in    the 

^  All  the  subject  is  admirably  discussed  in  Professor  Saints- 
bury's  great  History  of  Criticism, 


60  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

eighteenth  century  to  some  very  famous  generali- 
sations. But  they  were  based  on  an  imperfect 
knowledge  of  Greek  art,  and  (I  imagine)  have 
long  lost  the  authority  they  once  possessed.  The 
criticism  of  music  and  painting  shows  the  same 
weaknesses  as  the  criticism  of  literature.  Theory 
has  lagged  behind  practice;  and  the  procedure  of 
the  dead  has  too  often  been  embodied  in  rules 
which  serve  no  other  purpose  than  to  embarrass 
the  living. 

Criticism,  however,  of  this  kind  has  had  its  day. 
It  is  no  longer  in  demand.  The  attempt  to  limit 
aesthetic  expression  by  rules  is  seen  to  be  futile. 
The  attempt  to  find  formulse  for  the  creation  of 
new  works  of  beauty  by  taking  old  works  of 
beauty  to  pieces  and  noting  how  they  were  made, 
is  seen  to  be  more  futile  still.  But  if  these  kinds 
of  criticism  are  obsolete,  what  is  the  criticism  which 
now  occupies  their  place? 

It  is  abundant  and,  I  think,  admirable.  The 
modern  commentator  is  concerned  rather  to  point 
out  beauties  than  to  theorise  about  them.  He  does 
not  measure  merit  by  rule,  nor  crowd  his  pages 
with  judgments  based  on  precedent.  His  pro- 
cedure is  very  different.  He  takes  his  reader  as 
if  it  were  by  the  hand,  wanders  with  him  through 
some  chosen  field  of  literature  or  art,  guides  him 
to  its  fairest  scenes,  dwells  on  what  he  deems  to 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  61 

be  its  beauties,  indicates  its  defects,  and  invites 
him  to  share  his  pleasures.  His  commentary  on 
art  is  often  itself  a  work  of  art;  he  deals  with  lit- 
erature in  what  is  in  itself  literature.  And  he  so 
uses  the  apparatus  of  learned  research  that  the 
least  sympathetic  reader,  though  he  need  not 
admire,  can  scarcely  fail  to  imderstand  the  author 
criticised,  the  ends  he  aimed  at,  the  models  that 
swayed  him,  the  conventions  within  which  he 
worked,  the  nature  of  the  successes  which  it  was 
his  fortune  to  achieve. 

Of  criticism  like  this  we  cannot  have  too  much. 
Yet  it  has  its  difficulties;  or  rather  it  suggests 
difficulties  which  it  scarcely  attempts  to  solve. 
For  its  aesthetic  judgments  are,  in  spite  of  appear- 
ances, for  the  most  part  immediate  and,  so  to 
speak,  intuitive.  "Lo,  here!"  "Lo,  there!" 
"This  is  good!"  "That  is  less  good!"  "Wliat 
subtle  charm  in  this  stanza!"  "What  masterly 
orchestration  in  that  symphony!"  "What  admi- 
rable reahsm!"  "What  dehcate  fancy!"  The 
critic  tells  you  what  he  likes  or  dislikes;  he  may 
even  seem  to  tell  ybu  why ;  but  the  "why"  is  rarely 
more  than  a  statement  of  personal  preferences. 
For  these  preferences  he  may  quote  authority.  He 
may  classify  them.  He  may  frame  general  propo- 
sitions about  them  which  have  all  the  air  of 
embodying  critical  principles  on  which  articular 


62  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

aesthetic  judgments  may  securely  rest.  But,  in 
fact,  these  general  propositions  only  summarise  a 
multitude  of  separate  valuations  of  aesthetic  merit, 
each  of  which  is  either  self-sustaining,  or  is  worth- 
less. 

Many  critics,  it  is  true,  would  be  slow  to  admit 
this.  They  are  not  content  with  historical  and 
descriptive  accounts  of  art  and  artists.  They  long 
for  immutable  principles  of  judgment  based  on  the 
essential  nature  of  beauty.  It  does  not  suffice 
them  to  rejoice  over  what,  in  their  eyes  at  least,  is 
beautiful;  nor  yet  to  make  others  rejoice  with 
them.  Unless  they  can  appeal  to  some  critical 
canon,  abstract  and  universal,  their  personal  esti- 
mates of  aesthetic  value  seem  of  small  account. 
Nor  is  it  enough  for  them  that  they  should  be  right. 
To  complete  their  satisfaction,  those  who  differ 
from  them  must  be  wrong. 

This  is  perfectly  natural.  No  one  willingly 
believes  that  what  he  greatly  admires  is  admirable 
only  for  him.  We  all  instinctively  lean  to  the 
opinion  that  beauty  has  "objective"  worth,  and 
that  its  expression,  whether  in  nature  or  in  art, 
possesses,  as  of  right,  significance  for  the  world  at 
large.  Yet  how  is  this  possible?  It  is  not  merely 
that  no  code  of  critical  legislation  seems  to  be 
forthcoming.  The  difficulty  lies  deeper.  If  we 
had  such  a  code,  what  authority  could  it  claim?  To 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  63 

what  objective  test  can  judgment  about  beauty  be 
made  amenable?  If  a  picture  or  a  poem  stirs  my 
admiration,  can  there  be  any  meaning  in  the  state- 
ments that  my  taste  is  bad,  and  that  if  I  felt  rightly 
I  should  feel  differently?  If  there  be  a  meaning, 
what  is  it? 

In  dealing  with  this  fundamental  question  we 
must,  I  think,  distinguish.  There  are  kinds  of 
aesthetic  excellence  to  which,  in  a  certain  sense,  we 
can  apply  an  "objective"  test;  though  they  are 
neither  the  highest  kinds  of  excellence  nor  the  most 
important  from  the  point  of  view  of  theory.  I 
might  cite  as  examples  technical  skill,  workman- 
ship, the  mastery  over  material  and  instruments, 
and  kindred  matters.  These  are  more  or  less 
capable  of  impersonal  measurement;  and  I  cannot 
doubt  either  that  the  pleasure  they  give  to  the 
sympathetic  observer  is  very  great,  or  that  it  be- 
longs to  the  same  genus,  if  not  the  same  species,  as 
aesthetic  feeling  in  its  more  familiar  and  higher 
meaning. 

Some  may  think  it  dishonouring  to  beauty  thus 
to  class  it  with  technical  skill.  Others,  forgetful 
that  Fine  Art  is  the  distant  cousin  of  sport,  may 
think  it  dishonouring  to  the  technical  skill  required 
of  the  poet,  the  painter,  or  the  musician,  to  com- 
pare it  with  that  required  of  the  cricketer  or  the 
billiard-player.    There  is  no  doubt  an  all-important 


64  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

difference  between  them.  In  the  case  of  games, 
the  pleasures  which  the  sympathetic  observation  of 
great  skill  produces  in  a  competent  spectator  are 
unaffected  by  the  result;  for,  beyond  itself,  true 
sport  has,  properly  speaking,  no  result.  Victory 
and  defeat  are  subordinate  incidents.  The  final 
cause  of  games  is  the  playing  of  them.  In  art,  on 
the  other  iiand,  skill  is  a  means  to  an  end ;  and  if 
the  end  be  not  attained  there  is  apt  to  arise  a  cer- 
tain feeling  of  dissatisfaction.  Dexterous  versifi- 
cation which  does  not  result  in  poetry,  admirable 
brush-work  expressing  a  mean  design,  may  in  their 
degree  give  pleasure;  but  it  is  pleasure  marred  by 
the  reflection  that  the  purpose  for  which  versifica- 
tion and  painting  exist  has  not,  in  these  cases,  been 
accomplished. 

However  this  may  be,  my  contention  is  that  the 
pleasure  given  by  the  contemplation  of  technical 
dexterity  is  aesthetic,  and  that  technical  dexterity 
itself  is  capable  of  objective  estimation.  In  games 
of  pure  skill  it  is  certainly  so.  He  plays  best  who 
wins.  The  scorer  is  an  infallible  critic;  and  his 
standard  of  excellence  is  as  "objective"  as  any  man 
could  desire.  In  jother  cases,  no  doubt,  the  meas- 
ure of  technical  merit  may  not  be  so  precise.  It 
may  be  hard,  for  example,  to  decide  which  member 
of  a  hunt  rides  best  across  country,  or  which  com- 
poser shows  the  greatest  mastery  of  counterpoint 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  65 

and  fugue.  Yet  these  also  are  questions  more 
or  less  capable  of  "objective"  estimation.  The 
trained  critic,  be  it  in  the  art  of  riding  or  in  con- 
trapuntal conventions,  may,  by  the  application  of 
purely  impersonal  tests,  make  a  tolerably  fair 
comparison.  Familiar  with  the  difficulties  which 
have  to  be  met,  he  can  judge  of  the  success  with 
which  they  have  been  surmounted.  Basing  his 
estimate,  not  on  feeling  but  on  knowledge,  he  can 
measure  aesthetic  qualities  by  a  scale  which  is  not 
the  less  "objective"  because  it  may  often  be  uncer- 
tain in  its  application. 

Here,  then,  are  sesthetic  qualities  (I  have  taken 
artistic  workmanship  as  an  example)  which  have 
a  known  reality  apart  from  aesthetic  feeling,  and 
which  can  be  independently  measured.  Of  these  it 
is  possible,  in  a  certain  loose  sense,  to  say  that  the 
man  who  admires  them  is  right,  and  the  man  who 
does  not  admire  them  is  wrong:  that  the  one  sees 
excellence  when  it  is  there,  while  the  other  does 
not.  But  when  we  pass  from  qualities  like  these, 
through  doubtful  and  marginal  cases,  to  the  quali- 
ties we  call  "sublime,"  "beautiful,"  "pathetic," 
"humorous,"  "melodious,"  and  so  forth,  our  posi- 
tion is  quite  different.  What  kind  of  existence  are 
they  known  to  possess  apart  from  feeling?  How 
are  they  to  be  measured  except  by  the  emotions 
they  produce  ?    Are  they  indeed  anything  but  those 


66  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

very  emotions  illegitimately  "objectified,"  and 
assumed  to  be  permanent  attributes  of  the  works 
of  art  which  happen  in  this  case  or  in  that  to  excite 
them? 

Questions  of  this  kind  have,  I  suppose, 
haunted  all  those  who  cannot  accept  canons  of 
criticism  based  on  precedent  or  authority.  And 
many  are  the  devices  adopted,  or  hinted  at,  by 
which  the  sceptical  individualism,  which  these 
doubts  suggest,  may  be  removed  or  mitigated. 

Of  such  devices  the  most  familiar  is  the  assump- 
tion that,  however  impossible  it  may  be  to  discover 
in  what  beauty  consists,  it  is  quite  unnecessary  to 
do  so,  since  there  is  a  common  agreement  as  to  the 
things  which  are  in  fact  beautiful.  Though  the 
naturalist  may  not  be  able  to  define  life,  yet  the 
world  is  not  embarrassed  to  distinguish  the  living 
from  the  dead.  Though  there  are  many  colour- 
blind people  among  us,  yet  the  world  judges  with 
practical  security  that  the  flowers  of  a  geranium 
are  red  and  its  leaves  green.  In  like  manner  (it  is 
thought)  the  world  recognises  beauty  when  it  sees 
it,  unmoved  either  by  the  dissent  of  negligible 
minorities,  or  by  the  imperfections  of  aesthetic 
theory. 

These  analogies,  however,  are  misleading.  Bi- 
ologists may  be  perplexed  about  the  mystery  of 
life,  but  they  can  always  tell  you  why  they  regard 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  67 

this  body  as  living  and  that  one  as  dead.  Their 
canons  of  judgment  have  "objective"  value,  and 
are  as  applicable  to  new  cases  as  to  old.  The 
aesthetic  critics  of  whom  I  am  speaking  make  no 
such  claim.  They  do  not  pretend  to  catalogue  the 
external  attributes  by  which  the  objective  pres- 
ence of  the  higher  kinds  of  beauty  can  be  securely 
established,  which  are  never  present  when  it  is 
absent,  or  absent  when  it  is  present.  They  are 
always  reduced  in  the  last  resort  to  ask,  "Does  this 
work  of  art  convey  assthetic  pleasure?" — a  test 
which,  on  the  face  of  it,  is  subjective,  not  objective. 
So  also  with  regard  to  colour.  There  are,  of 
course,  persons  of  abnormal  vision  to  whom  the 
flower  of  a  geranium  appears  to  possess  very  much 
the  same  hue  as  its  leaves.  But  this  throws  no 
doubt  on  what  ordinary  men  mean  either  by  the 
sensation  of  red,  or  by  a  red  object.  The  physical 
quality  which  constitutes  redness  is  perfectly  well 
known,  and  when  its  presence  in  some  external 
body  is  otherwise  established,  it  may  be  confidently 
foreltold  that  in  appropriate  conditions  it  will  pro- 
duce the  sensation  of  red  in  persons  normally  con- 
stituted. But  subject  to  what  has  been  said  above, 
we  know  nothing  of  the  objective  side  of  beauty. 
When  we  say  that  a  tune  is  melodious,  or  an  image 
sublime,  or  a  scene  pathetic,  the  adjectives  may 
seem  to  be  predicated  of  these  objects,  in  precisely 


68  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

the  same  way  as  redness  is  predicated  of  a  gera- 
nium. But  it  is  not  so.  As  I  have  already  ob- 
served, we  are  merely  naming  the  sentiments  they 
produce,  not  the  qualities  by  which  they  produce 
them.  We  cannot  describe  the  higher  beauties  of 
beautiful  objects  except  in  terms  of  aesthetic  feeling 
— and  ex  vi  termim  such  descriptions  are  subjective. 

It  may,  however,  be  admitted  that  if  there  were 
a  general  agreement  about  things  that  are  beauti- 
ful, only  philosophers  would  disquiet  themselves 
in  order  to  discover  in  what  precisely  their  beauty 
consisted.  But  notoriously  there  is  no  such  agree- 
ment. Difference  of  race,  difference  of  age, 
different  degrees  of  culture  among  men  of  the 
same  race  and  the  same  age,  individual  idiosyn- 
crasy and  collective  fashion  occasion,  or  accom- 
pany, the  widest  possible  divergence  of  aesthetic 
feeling.  The  same  work  of  art  which  moves  one 
man  to  admiration,  moves  another  to  disgust; 
what  rouses  the  enthusiasm  of  one  generation, 
leaves  another  hostile  or  indifferent. 

These  things  are  undeniable,  and  are  not  denied. 
But  it  is  sometimes  sought  to  soften  the  "individu- 
alist" conclusions  to  which  they  lead,  by  appealing 
from  the  wild  and  wandering  fancies  of  ordinary 
men  to  an  aristocracy  of  taste ;  and  it  must  in  fair- 
ness be  acknowledged  that  among  experts  there  is 
something  distantly  approaching  a  common  body 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  69 

of  doctrine  about  the  literary  and  artistic  master- 
pieces of  the  world.  Set  a  dozen  contemporary 
critics  to  make  lists  of  the  best  books,  pictures, 
buildings,  operas,  and  the  results  will  be  fairly 
harmonious.  These  results  (it  is  claimed)  may  be 
regarded  as  evidence  that  among  qualified  judges 
there  is  an  agreement  sufficient  to  serve  as  a  work- 
ing substitute  for  some  undiscovered,  and  perhaps 
undiscoverable,  criterion  of  artistic  merit. 

But  the  more  we  examine  the  character  of  this 
agreement  among  experts  the  less  weight  shall  we 
feel  disposed  to  attach  to  it — and  for  more  than 
one  reason.  In  the  first  place,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered that  the  very  fact  of  its  existence  has  caused 
the  cultivated  portion  of  mankind — all  who  take 
even  the  most  superficial  interest  in  literature  and 
art — to  fall  under  the  influence  of  a  common 
literary  and  artistic  tradition.  This  has  many 
consequences.  It  inclines  some  persons  to  assume 
an  admiration  which  they  do  not  feel  for  things 
which  everybody  round  them  thinks  worthy  to  be 
admired.  Others  again  keep  silence  when  they 
cannot  praise.  Nothing,  they  think,  is  gained  by 
emphasising  dissent.  Why  proclaim  from  the 
housetops  that  some  author,  long  since  dead,  does 
not,  in  their  opinion,  deserve  the  share  of  fame 
assigned  to  him  by  accepted  tradition?  Let  him 
rest.    A  more  important  effect  is  that  the  unfelt 


70  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

pressure  of  general  opinion  produces  not  merely 
sham  professions,  but  genuine  sentiments.  Fash- 
ion, whether  in  clothes  or  operas,  whether  in  man- 
ners or  in  morals  (as  I  have  shown  elsewhere)  is 
an  influence  which,  though  it  may  produce  some 
hypocrites,  most  certainly  produces  many  true  be- 
lievers. And  tradition,  though  infinitely  more 
than  mere  fashion,  is  fashion  still. 

These  considerations  require  us  largely  to  dis- 
count the  agreement  prevalent  in  current  estimates 
of  literature  and  art.  But  there  is  a  more  impor- 
tant point  still  to  be  noted,  which  yet  further  dimin- 
ishes the  value  of  any  conclusions  which  that  agree- 
ment may  seem  to  support.  For  we  are  bound  to 
ask  how  deep  the  agreement  goes  even  in  the  cases 
where  in  some  measure  it  may  be  truly  said  to  exist. 
Do  critics  who  would  approximately  agree  in  their 
lists  of  great  artists  agree  as  to  the  order  of  their 
excellence?  Do  men  of  "trained  sensibility"  feel 
alike  in  the  presence  of  the  same  masterpiece?  I 
do  not  believe  it.  The  mood  of  admiration  aroused 
by  style,  by  technical  skill,  by  the  command  of  ma- 
terial and  instruments,  may  well  form  a  common 
ground  where  competent  critics  will  find  them- 
selves in  decent  agreement.  But  as  the  quality  of 
ffisthetic  emotion  rises,  as  we  approach  the  level 
where  the  sentiment  of  beauty  becomes  intense,  and 
the  passion  of  admiration  incommunicable,  there  is 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  71 

not — and,  I  believe,  cannot  be — any  real  unanimity 
of  personal  valuation.  On  these  high  peaks  men 
never  wander  in  crowds ;  they  whose  paths  lie  close 
together  on  the  slopes  below  perforce  divide  into 
diminishing  companies,  as  each  moves  upwards 
towards  his  chosen  ideals  of  excellence. 

If  any  man  doubt  that  the  agreement  among 
experts  is  in  some  degree  artificial,  and  in  some  de- 
gree imaginary,  let  him  turn  for  a  moment  from  the 
critics  who  have  created  our  literary  and  artistic 
tradition  to  the  men  of  genius  who  have  created 
literature  and- art.  No  one  will  deny  that  they 
were  men  of  "trained  sensibility":  no  one  will  main- 
tain that  they  were  agreed.  So  little,  indeed,  have 
they  been  agreed,  that  the  law  of  change  prevailing 
through  certain  important  periods  of  artistic  his- 
tory seems  to  be  based  on  their  disagreement. 
Successive  epochs,  which  show  little  difference  in 
other  elements  of  culture,  yet  often  differ  vehe- 
mently in  their  aesthetic  judgments.  Action  is  fol- 
lowed by  reaction.  A  school,  at  one  moment  domi- 
nant, gradually  decays,  and  is  succeeded  by  another 
of  sharply  contrasted  characteristics.  The  art- 
producing  fields  get  wearied,  as  it  were,  of  a  crop 
too  often  sown ;  their  harvests  dwindle ;  until  in  the 
fullness  of  time  a  new  vegetation,  drawing  upon 
fresh  sources  of  nourishment,  springs  suddenly  into 
vigorous  and  aggressive  life. 


72  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

Now,  in  looking  back,  either  on  revolutions  like 
these,  or  on  other  less  abrupt  but  equally  important 
changes,  of  which  the  history  of  literature  and  art 
shows  so  many  examples,  we  must  not,  for  the  pur- 
poses of  the  present  argument,  take  up  the  position 
of  the  eclectic  critic  who,  calmly  appreciative  and 
coldly  just,  sees  merits  in  every  school  and  is  im- 
passioned over  none.  All  that  my  argument  re- 
quires is  proof  that  the  judgments  of  great  writers 
and  artists,  especially  when  they  are  untamed  by 
the  orthodoxies  of  traditions,  show  none  of  that 
agreement  of  which  we  are  in  search.  Wordsworth 
on  the  eighteenth  century,  Boileau  on  the  sixteenth, 
Voltaire  on  Shakespeare,  the  French  romantics  on 
the  French  classics,  the  Renaissance  on  the  Middle 
Ages,  are  familiar  illustrations  of  the  point.  And 
if  further  evidence  be  required,  note  how  rarely  em- 
inent critics  endeavour  to  lead  opinion  upon  new 
artistic  developments,  and  how  rarely,  when  they 
do,  they  succeed  in  anticipating  the  verdict  of  pos- 
terity— so  hesitating  is  their  tread,  so  uncertain 
their  course,  when  they  have  no  tried  tradition 
whereon  to  lean. 

The  same  sharp  division  of  taste  among  those 
who  practise  an  art,  somewhat  smoothed  over  and 
blurred  by  those  who  subsequently  comment  on  it, 
is  illustrated  (it  seems  to  me)  by  the  history  of 
Gothic  architecture.    All  know  well  the  spectacle 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  73 

of  some  great  cathedral  slowly  grown  to  completion 
through  the  labours  of  successive  generations.  We 
neither  find,  nor  expect  to  find,  that  the  original 
design  has  been  followed  throughout.  On  the  con- 
trary, eacE  succeeding  school  has  built  its  share  of 
work  in  its  own  style.  The  fourteenth-century 
architect  does  nothing  as  it  would  have  been  done 
could  the  twelfth-century  architect  have  had  his 
way;  and  the  fifteenth  century  treats  the  fourteenth 
as  the  fourteenth  treated  its  predecessors.  We 
praise  the  mixed  result,  and  doubtless  we  do  well. 
But  we  make,  I  believe,  a  great  mistake  if  we  at- 
tribute to  the  mediaeval  artists  our  own  mood  of 
universal,  if  somewhat  ineffectual,  admiration. 
Their  point  of  view  was,  probably,  very  different. 
If  they  refused  to  build  in  the  old  manner,  it  was 
because  they  thought  the  new  manner  better.  They 
thought  well  of  themselves  and  poorly  of  their  fore- 
fathers. They  had  the  intolerance  which  so  often 
accompanies  real  creative  power.  This  at  least  is 
my  conjecture.  What  is  not  a  matter  of  conjecture 
but  of  certainty  is  the  way  in  which  the  different 
schools  of  mediaeval  architecture  were  collectively 
condemned  by  their  successors.  The  barbaric  ex- 
travagance of  Gothic  design  was  a  common-place 
of  criticism  until  the  Gothic  revival  substituted 
tasteless  imitation  for  ignorant  contempt. 

Music,  however,  is  the  art  which  perhaps  most 


T4  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

clearly  shows  how  futile  is  the  search  for  agreement 
among  men  of  "trained  sensibility."  It  is  indeed 
an  art  which,  I  may  parenthetically  observe,  has 
many  pecuniary  merits  as  a  subject  of  aesthetic 
study.  It  makes  no  assertions ;  so  its  claims  on  our 
admiration  can  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  "True." 
It  serves  no  purpose;  so  it  raises  no  question  as  to 
the  relation  between  "the  beautiful"  and  "the 
useful."  It  copies  nothing;  so  the  aesthetic  worth 
of  imitation  and  the  proper  relation  of  art  to 
nature  are  problems  which  it  never  even  suggests. 
From  the  endless  controversies  about  Realism, 
Idealism,  and  Impressionism,  with  which  the  crit- 
icism of  other  arts  have  been  encumbered,  musical 
criticism  is  thus  happily  free;  while  the  immense 
changes  which  have  revolutionised  both  the  artistic 
methods  and  the  material  resources  of  the  musician 
— changes  without  a  parallel  either  in  literature,  in 
painting,  in  sculpture,  or  even  in  architecture — 
have  hindered  the  growth  of  an  orthodox  tradition. 
Music  thus  occupies  in  some  respects  a  place  apart; 
but  its  theoretic  importance  cannot  on  that  account 
be  ignored.  On  the  contrary,  it  becomes  all  the 
more  imperative  to  remember  that  no  aesthetic  prin- 
ciple which  fails  to  apply  to  it  can  be  other  than 
partial  and  provincial.  It  can  never  claim  to  be  a 
law  governing  the  whole  empire  of  artistic  beauty. 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  75 

That  collisions  of  expert  taste  abound  in  the  his- 
tory of  music  will  be  generally  admitted.  But  leav- 
ing on  one  side  minor  oscillations  of  opinion,  let  us 
take,  as  an  illustration  of  our  point,  the  contrast 
between  the  beginning  and  end  of  the  period  dur- 
ing which  music  has  played  a  known  part  in 
European  culture. 

The  contrast  is  certainly  most  striking.  Our 
knowledge  of  ancient  music  is  unsatisfactory:  but  it 
seems  to  be  admitted  that  among  the  Greeks  har- 
mony, in  the  modern  sense,  was  scarcely  used,  and 
that  their  instrumentation  was  as  rudimentary  as 
their  harmony.  Of  their  compositions  we  know  lit- 
tle. But  it  is  plain  that,  however  exquisite  may 
have  been  the  airs  rendered  by  means  so  modest  as 
these,  their  charms  to  modern  ears  would  be  thin 
and  colourless  compared  with  those  that  modem 
music  itself  is  able  to  convey — not  because  the 
Greek  genius  was  inferior,  but  because  it  had  not 
the  means,  in  this  particular  art,  of  giving  itself  full 
expression.    Titian  limited  to  a  lead  pencil. 

Now  this  observation,  taken  by  itself,  is  not,  of 
course,  relevant  to  my  present  argument.  It  be- 
comes significant  only  when  we  compare  it  with  the 
view  the  Greeks  themselves  took  of  their  own  music. 
To  us  it  seems  that  this  was  the  one  branch  of 
artistic  production  in  which  they  did  not  attain  a 


76  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

certain  mature  perfection.^  Even  if  we  assume 
that  they  did  all  that  could  be  done  with  the  means 
at  their  disposal,  we  must  still  suppose  that  the 
poverty  of  those  means  most  fatally  limited  their 
powers  of  artistic  creation.  But  this  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  their  own  opinion.  On  the  contrary, 
while  the  architect  was  counted  as  little  better  than 
a  skilled  artisan,  the  musician  ranked  with  the  poet. 
Music  itself  they  put  high  among  the  arts.  They 
devoted  endless  labour  to  its  theory,  and  their  ac- 
counts of  its  emotional  effect  would  seem  exag- 
gerated in  the  mouths  of  those  familiar  with  the 
most  impassioned  strains  of  modern  composers, 
aided  by  all  the  resources  of  a  modern  orchestra. 
That  any  tunes,  rendered  in  unison  by  voice  or  lyre 
or  pipe,  or  all  three  together,  should  be  thought  by 
grave  philosophers  so  moving  as  to  be  a  danger  to 
society  appears  incredible.  It  seems,  nevertheless, 
to  have  been  the  fact. 

If  so,  it  is  a  fact  which  irresistibly  suggests  that 
the  most  artistic  race  the  world  has  seen  rated 
aesthetic  values  on  a  scale  quite  different  from  our 
own.  Of  their  literature  and  their  architecture  we 
know  much ;  of  their  sculpture  we  know  something. 
Of  their  music  it  may  be  thought  that  we  know 
nothing.    But  we  know  both  the  ardour  with  which 

^  To  be  sure  we  know  nothing  worth  knowing  of  their 
painting. 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  77 

it  was  cultivated,  the  esteem  in  which  it  was  held, 
and  its  narrow  limitations.  And  this  knowledge  is 
sufficient  to  prove  my  thesis.  No  one  can  seriously 
suppose  that  if  he  were  suddenly  transported  to  the 
Athens  of  Phidias  and  Sophocles,  he  would  count 
the  Greek  musician  as  worthy  of  a  place  beside  the 
Greek  sculptor  and  the  Greek  poet! 

I  will  not  further  multiply  proofs  of  the  deep 
diiferences  by  which  trained  taste  is  divided.  I 
doubt  whether,  on  reflection,  anyone  will  seriously 
question  the  fact,  whatever  he  may  think  of  the  par- 
ticular illustrations  by  which  I  have  endeavoured  to 
establish  it.  A  more  fundamental  question,  how- 
ever, remains  behind :  What  title  has  the  opinion  of 
experts  to  authority  in  matters  aesthetic?  Even  if 
it  showed  that  agreement  in  which  it  is  so  con- 
spicuously lacking,  why  should  men  endeavour  to 
mould  their  feelings  into  the  patterns  it  prescribes? 
In  the  practical  affairs  of  life  we  follow  those  who 
have  made  a  special  study  of  some  particular  prob- 
lem, only  because  they  have  greater  knowledge 
than  ourselves  of  the  relevant  facts.  But  in  the 
region  of  ^Esthetics,  what  are  the  relevant  facts? 
If  the  worth  of  beauty  lie  in  the  emotion  which  it 
occasions,  special  knowledge  can  only  be  of  impor- 
tance when  it  heightens  that  emotion.  It  may  be  a 
stimulus,  but  how  can  it  be  a  guide  ? 

Now,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  there  are 


78  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

many  cases  where  special  knowledge  does  serve  to 
heighten  emotion;  indeed,  there  are  cases  where, 
without  that  knowledge,  no  emotion  would  be  felt 
at  all.  The  pleasure  consciously  derived  from  mas- 
terly workmanship  is  one  case  in  point.  Another 
is,  where  a  work  of  art  seems  nearly  unmeaning, 
considered  out  of  its  historical  setting,  and  yet 
shines  with  significant  beauty  when  that  setting  has 
been  provided  for  us  by  the  labours  of  the  critic. 

But  is  there  not  another  side  to  this  question? 
Does  not  the  direct  appeal  made  to  uncultivated 
receptivity  by  what  critics  would  describe  as  very 
indifferent  art  sometimes  produce  aesthetic  emotion 
which,  measured  by  its  intensity,  might  be  envied 
by  the  most  delicate  connoisseur?  Who  shall  deny 
that  the  schoolboy,  absorbed  in  some  tale  of  impos- 
sible adventure,  incurious  about  its  author,  indif- 
ferent to  its  style,  interested  only  in  the  breathless 
succession  of  heroic  endeavours  and  perilous  es- 
capes, is  happy  in  the  enjoyment  of  what  is  art, 
and  nothing  but  art?  If  to  those  of  riper  years 
and  different  tastes  the  art  seems  poor,  does  that 
make  it  poor?  Does  such  a  judgment  condemn 
either  writer  or  reader?  Surely  not.  The  writer, 
to  be  sure,  may  be  something  less  than  Homer ;  but 
the  spirit  of  the  reader — simple,  credulous,  enjoy- 
ing— is  the  spirit  in  which,  of  bid,  before  criticism 
was  born,  some  Greek  king  and  his  high-born  guests 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  79 

listened  to  the  tale  of  Troy  and  the  wanderings 
of  Ulysses. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  either  say  or  think  that  the 
pleasures  of  art  diminish  as  the  knowledge  of  art 
augments.  Some  loss  there  commonly  is,  as  men 
grow  old  and  learned ;  yet  we  may  hope  that  in  most 
cases  it  is  compensated  a  hundred-fold.  But  it  is 
not  always  so.  In  popular  usage  the  very  word 
"criticism"  suggests  the  detection  of  faults  and  the 
ignoring  of  merits ;  in  popular  esteem  the  refusal  to 
admire  marks  the  man  of  taste.  This  singular  view, 
which  suggests  the  inference  that  artistic  education 
is  an  instrument  for  making  men  fastidious  and 
preventing  them  being  happy,  derives,  it  may  be, 
some  faint  support  from  facts.  Are  there  not  per- 
sons to  be  found  who  have  sharpened  the  delicacy 
of  their  aesthetic  discrimination  to  the  finest  edge, 
yet  take  but  small  pleasure  in  beauty — ^who  are 
the  oracles  of  artistic  societies,  the  terror  (or  per- 
haps the  Providence)  of  rich  collectors,  whom  no 
copy  can  deceive,  nor  any  original  delight?  Surely 
the  worst  taste  in  the  world  is  better  than  taste  so 
good  as  this! 

Such  temperaments  are  rare.  But  even  their 
possibility  suggests  a  problem  which  seems  to  me 
most  difficult  of  solution.  If  there  be  no  objective 
standard  of  merit,  and  the  degree  of  aesthetic  emo- 
tion which  a  work  of  art  produces  be  the  only 


80  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

measure  of  its  excellence,  how  are  the  elements 
which  make  up  that  emotion  to  be  compared?  What 
(more  particularly)  is  to  be  allowed  for  quality, 
what  for  quantity? — ^vague  terms,  though  suffi- 
ciently intelligible  for  my  purpose. 

Consider,  for  example,  this  case.  There  have 
been  in  Literature — indeed,  I  think  in  all  the  arts 
— men  of  delicate  or  peculiar  genius,  whose  works 
make  little  appeal  to  the  crowd,  yet  find  at  intervals 
through  many  generations  a  few  devoted  lovers. 
Their  names  may  have  an  established  place  in  his- 
tory, and  their  writings  be  read  for  purposes  of 
study  or  examination.  But  the  number  of  those 
who  really  feel  their  charm  is  small.  Count  them, 
and  they  would  not  in  a  century  equal  the  audi- 
ences which  in  six  months  are  moved  to  tears  or 
laughter  by  some  popular  play.  Which,  then,  of 
these  two,  contributes  most  to  the  aesthetic  pleasures 
of  the  world — the  play  which,  in  its  brief  moment 
of  favour,  gives  widespread  delight,  or  the  poem 
(if  poem  it  be)  which  is  long  remembered  but  little 
read? 

No  one  would  give  his  verdict  for  the  play.  Yet 
why  not?  It  is,  I  suppose,  because  we  rate  the  deli- 
cate pleasure  given  by  the  poem  as  higher  in 
"quality,"  though  it  be  smaller  in  "quantity"  than 
the  commoner  joys  supplied  wholesale  by  its  rival. 
And  this  may  be  perfectly  right.    Beyond  doubt. 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  81 

there  are  real  distinctions,  corresponding  to  such 
words  as  "higher"  and  "lower,"  "refined"  and 
"commonplace";  beyond  doubt,  we  cannot  regard 
esthetic  emotion  as  a  homogeneous  entity,  undif- 
ferentiated in  quality,  simply  to  be  measured  as 
"more"  or  "less."  This  makes  it  hard  enough  for  a 
man  to  determine  a  scale  of  values  which  shall  hon- 
estly represent  his  own  aesthetic  experience.  But 
does  it  not  make  it  absolutely  hopeless  to  find  a 
scale  which  shall  represent,  even  in  the  roughest 
approximation,  the  experiences  of  mankind?  The 
task  is  inherently  impossible ;  and  it  is  made  doubly 
impossible  by  the  difficulty  we  all  find  in  excluding 
irrelevant  considerations.  The  thing  to  be  discov- 
ered being  what  men  do  feel,  we  are  always  consid- 
ering what,  if  their  taste  was  good,  they  ought  to 
feel;  what,  if  they  were  properly  trained,  they 
would  feel;  what  it  is  best  for  their  spiritual  well- 
being  that  they  should  feel,  and  so  forth.  None  of 
which  questions,  important  and  interesting  as  they 
are,  assist  us  to  discover  or  to  apply  a  scale  of 
values  based  merely  on  the  sesthetic  emotions 
actually  experienced. 


The  conclusions  so  far  reached  are  in  the  main 
negative.  We  have  had  to  reject  the  idea  that  a 
standard  of  excellence  can  either  be  extracted  by 


82  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

critical  analysis  from  the  practice  of  accepted  mod- 
els, or  that  it  can  be  based  on  the  consensus  of  ex- 
perts, or  upon  universal  suffrage.  We  must  recog- 
nise that,  while  training  is  necessary  to  the  com- 
prehension, and  therefore  to  the  full  enjoyment,  of 
many  works  of  art — while,  in  particular,  the  sym- 
pathetic delight  in  masterly  workmanship  can 
hardly  be  obtained  without  it — few  aesthetic  emo- 
tions exceed  in  intensity  the  simple  raptures 
aroused  in  naive  souls  by  works  which  instructed 
criticism  would  often  refuse  to  admire.  And  we 
must  own  that  if,  defeated  in  the  attempt  to  base 
our  judgments  on  authority,  we  endeavour  to  base 
them  on  general  experience;  if  we  say  that  that  is 
the  greatest  aesthetic  performance  which  gives  to 
mankind  the  greatest  aesthetic  delight — ^we  are 
brought  face  to  face  with  countless  difficulties; 
among  which  not  the  least  is  the  difficulty  of  saying 
what  is  the  greatest  aesthetic  delight,  when  the 
greatness  which  has  to  be  measured  is  a  value  de- 
pendent on  the  "quality"  of  the  delight,  as  well  as 
on  its  "quantity." 

Now  to  those  who  approach  aesthetics  from  the 
side  of  psychology,  all  these  conclusions  seem  nat- 
ural enough.  For  it  is  only  among  the  simple  or- 
ganic pleasures — the  pleasures  of  sense — that,  as 
between  man  and  man,  approximate  uniformity  of 
pleasurable  experience  might  be  antecedently  ex- 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  88 

pected.  All  persons  who  can  taste  at  all  are  agreed 
as  to  what  is  sweet  and  what  is  bitter;  and  all  chil- 
dren, at  least,  are  agreed  that  the  first  is  nice  and 
the  second  is  nasty.  Maturer  palates  no  doubt  may 
be  variously  affected  by  the  finer  aspects  of  the 
culinary  art;  but  though  differences  of  custom  be- 
tween communities,  and  differences  of  sense- 
perception  between  individuals,  mar  the  original 
uniformity  of  judgment,  yet  on  the  whole  the  civi- 
lised world  is  fairly  agreed  as  to  what  it  likes  to  eat 
and  drink.  But  in  the  region  of  aesthetics  conditions 
are  very  different.  There  association  of  ideas  plays 
so  important  a  part  in  the  creation  of  taste,  the 
feeling  of  beauty  springs  from  psychological 
causes  so  complex  and  so  subtle,  that  we  need  feel 
no  surprise  at  its  being  occasioned  in  different  peo- 
ple by  different  objects.  In  the  pleasures  of  sense 
we  never  get  very  far  from  the  innate  physiological 
qualities  in  which  men  are  most  alike.  In  the 
pleasures  of  aesthetics  we  are  very  largely  con- 
cerned with  the  qualities  in  which  men  most  vary — 
education,  experience,  beliefs,  traditions,  customs. 
The  strange  thing  is  not  that  there  should  be  so 
little  agreement  in  critical  judgments  as  that  there 
should  be  so  much:  though,  to  be  sure,  the  agree- 
ment is,  as  I  have  already  pointed  out,  often  more 
apparent  than  real.  This,  however,  is  no  consola- 
tion to  those  who  cannot  willingly  part  with  the  be- 


84  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

lief  that  in  art  there  is  a  "right"  and  a  "wrong," 
as  well  as  a  "more  pleasing"  and  a  "less  pleasing." 
A  theory  which  makes  every  man  a  law  unto  him- 
self, which  shatters  anything  in  the  nature  of  an 
independent  standard,  which  barely  admits  the 
theoretic  possibility  of  arriving  at  some  rough  esti- 
mate of  the  aesthetic  values  actually  realised  in  ex- 
perience, is  to  them  well-nigh  intolerable.  It  seems 
to  make  our  highest  ideals  the  sport  of  individual 
caprice,  to  reduce  the  essence  of  beauty  to  individ- 
ual feeling,  and  in  so  doing  to  make  it  no  more  than 
the  transitory  consequence  of  chance  suscepti- 
bilities, or  the  incalculable  by-product  of  social 
evolution. 

The  reluctance  to  accept  such  views  has  (often 
unconsciously)  driven  some  critical  theorists  to 
strange  expedients.  If  the  dignity  of  art  be  low- 
ered by  the  instability  of  aesthetic  values,  it  might, 
they  think,  be  raised  by  an  alliance  with  other  great 
spiritual  interests.  An  artist  is  therefore  deemed 
to  be  more  than  the  maker  of  beautiful  things.  He 
is  a  seer,  a  moralist,  a  prophet.  He  must  intui- 
tively penetrate  the  realities  which  lie  behind  this 
world  of  shows.  At  the  lowest  he  must  supply 
"a  criticism  of  life."  In  much  of  Ruskin's  work 
aesthetics,  theology,  and  morals  are  inextricably  in- 
tertwined. In  the  criticisms  by  smaller  men,  the 
same  thing  has  been  done  in  a  smaller  way;  and 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  85 

obiter  dicta  based  on  the  view  that  good  art  is  al- 
ways something  more  than  art,  that  it  not  only 
creates  beauty,  but  symbolically  teaches  philos- 
ophy, religion,  ethics,  even  science,  are  constantly 
to  be  found  in  the  purple  passages  of  enthusiastic 
commentators  on  poetry,  music,  and  painting. 

For  myself  I  admit  that  I  require  a  "mystical 
supplement  to  that  strictly  critical  view  of  beauty 
and  art  with  which  alone  I  am  now  concerned.  But 
nothing  is  gained  by  pretending  that  we  have 
reached  the  point  where  the  two  can  be  blended  in 
one  harmonious  system.  So  far  as  I  can  see  we 
are  not  near  it.  In  particular  I  can  find  no  justi- 
fication in  experience  for  associating  great  art  with 
penetrating  insight,  or  good  art  with  good  morals. 
Optimism  and  pessimism;  materialism  and  spirit- 
ualism; theism,  pantheism,  atheism;  morality  and 
immorality;  religion  and  irreligion;  lofty  resigna- 
tion and  passionate  revolt — each  and  all  have  in- 
spired or  helped  to  inspire  the  creators  of  artistic 
beauty.  It  would  even  (I  suppose)  be  rash  con- 
fidently to  assert  that  the  "everlasting  Yea"  pro- 
vides material  more  easily  moulded  to  the  uses  of 
high  imagination  than  the  "everlasting  Nay"; 
while  it  is  certain  that  cheap  cynicism  and  petty 
spite  have  supplied  the  substance  of  literary 
achievements  which  we  could  ill  afford  to  lose. 

To  a  very  different  order  of  thought  belong  the 


86  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

vast  metaphysical  structures  of  German  philoso- 
phers. Yet  they  also  have  been  greatly  concerned 
to  find  for  aesthetics  a  fitting  niche  in  the  eternal 
framework  of  the  transcendental  "whole."  No  one 
will  suggest  that  their  efforts  have  been  half- 
hearted, or  that  their  task  has  been  undertaken  in 
other  than  the  most  serious  spirit.  But  it  would 
plainly  be  impossible  properly  to  discuss  beauty 
and  metaphysics  in  a  lecture  devoted  to  beauty 
and  criticism.  It  is  perhaps  the  less  necessary  to 
make  the  attempt  since  I  do  not  remember  that  in 
this  country,  with  the  exception  of  Professor  Bo- 
sanquet,  metaphysicians,  even  those  most  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  general  attitude  of  the  great  tran- 
scendentalists,  have  dwelt  at  length  upon  their 
aesthetic  speculations.  However  this  may  be,  I 
cannot,  for  my  own  part,  find  that  these  have  pro- 
vided me  with  any  way  of  escape  from  the  difficul- 
ties which  I  most  acutely  feel.  I  get  no  aid  from 
such  doctrine  as  that  ''aesthetics  is  the  meeting-point 
of  reason  and  understanding,"  or  that  "it  is  the 
sensible  expression  of  the  idea,"  or  that  "it  is  the 
expression  of  the  unconscious  will."  In  truth 
these  views  labour  under  the  disadvantage  that, 
while  they  are  almost  meaningless  to  those  who 
cannot  accept  the  systems  of  which  they  are  a  frag- 
ment, they  are  not,  I  think  (though  I  speak  with 
diffidence),  enthusiastically  adopted  even  by  those 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  87 

to  whose  general  way  of  thinking  those  systems  arc 
congenial. 

The  result,  then,  of  this  concise  survey  of  a  great 
subject  is  negative.  Apart  from  transcendental 
metaphysics,  I  have  said  enough  (in  my  belief  at 
least)  to  show  that  neither  considered  in  them- 
selves, nor  in  their  relation  to  any  wider  outlook, 
can  our  valuations  of  beauty  claim  "objective"  va- 
lidity. We  can  say  of  a  work  of  art  or  a  scene  in 
nature — "this  moves  me";  we  may  partially  dis- 
tinguish the  elements  which  produce  the  total  re- 
sult and  attempt  some  estimate  of  their  worth  sep- 
arately as  well  as  in  combination ;  we  may  compare 
aesthetic  merit  in  respect  of  quality  as  well  as  quan- 
tity, saying,  for  example,  of  one  thing — "this  is 
great"  ^ ;  of  another — "this  is  exquisite,"  of  a  third 
— "this  is  merely  pretty,"  and  so  on.  But  beyond 
statements  embodying  personal  valuations  like 
these  we  can  rarely  go.  We  cannot  devise  a  code 
of  criticism.  We  cannot  define  the  dogmas  of 
aesthetic  orthodoxy.  We  can  appeal  neither  to  rea- 
son, nor  experience,  nor  authority.  Ideals  of 
beauty  change  from  generation  to  generation. 
Those  who  produce  works  of  art  disagree;  those 
who  comment  on  works  of  art  disagree;  while  the 
multitude,  anxious  to  admire  where  they  "ought," 

^  "Great"  in  criticism  commonly  expresses  quality,  not  mere 
quantity. 


88  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

and  pathetically  reluctant  to  admire  where  they 
"ought  not,"  disagree  like  their  teachers. 

What  then,  it  may  be  asked,  have  I  to  offer  in 
mitigation  of  a  view  which  seems  so  degrading 
to  emotions  and  activities  which  we  rate  (truly,  I 
think)  among  the  highest  of  which  we  are  capable? 
Not  much,  perhaps ;  not  enough,  certainly ;  yet  still 
something. 

For  what  are  the  aesthetic  emotions  about  which 
we  have  been  occupied  in  these  pages?  They  are 
the  highest  members  of  a  great  class  whose  com- 
mon characteristic  is  that  they  do  not  lead  to  action. 
It  is  their  peculiarity  and  their  glory  that  they 
have  nothing  to  do  with  business,  with  the  adapta- 
tion of  means  to  ends,  with  the  bustle  and  the  dust 
of  life.  They  are  impractical  and  purposeless. 
They  serve  no  interest,  and  further  no  cause.  They 
are  self-sufficing,  and  neither  point  to  any  good  be- 
yond themselves,  nor  overflow  except  by  accident 
into  any  practical  activities. 

This  statement  is  no  doubt  open  to  many  misun- 
derstandings. I  will  mention  some,  though  I  will 
not  dwell  on  them.  It  may  be  said,  for  instance, 
that  the  description  is  incomplete  in  that  it  refers 
only  to  those  who  enjoy  works  of  art,  not  to  those 
who  create  them.  It  deals  with  readers,  not  au- 
thors; hearers,  not  musicians;  those  who  look  at 
pictures,  not  those  who  paint  them.    This  is  true. 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  89 

but  is  surely  no  objection.  I  am  concerned  here 
with  the  criticism  of  beauty — not  with  its  produc- 
tion. These  are  separate  matters,  and  should  be 
separately  considered. 

Again,  it  may  be  asked — how  can  aesthetic  feel- 
ings be  described  as  essentially  purposeless  and 
self-sufficing?  Does  sacred  art  aim  only  at  pro- 
ducing emotion  divorced  from  action?  Has  archi- 
tecture nothing  to  do  with  the  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends?  Are  military  marches  primarily  com- 
posed for  those  who  listen  to  them  in  tea-gardens? 

But  this  is  to  confuse  the  object  of  the  artist 
with  the  feelings  of  those  who  enjoy  his  art.  Now 
undoubtedly  the  objects  of  the  artist  may  be  mani- 
fold. Milton,  as  we  know,  wrote  Paradise  Lost  in 
order  (among  other  things)  to  "justify  the  ways 
of  God  to  man."  We  read  him,  however,  for  his 
poetry,  not  for  his  theology ;  and  it  is  only  with  the 
aesthetic  side  of  his,  or  any  other  artist's,  work  that 
we  are  here  concerned. 

But  again,  it  may  be  said  that,  quite  irrespective 
of  the  deliberate  intention  of  the  artist,  the  emo- 
tions he  suggests  may  tend  to  foster  dispositions 
which,  for  good  or  ill,  have  far-reaching  effects  on 
practice.  This  again  is  true.  Most  persons  admit 
that  art  may  "elevate."  It  is  scarcely  to  be  denied 
that  it  may  also  demoralise.  But  this  does  not 
touch  the  point.    We  may  surely  hold  that  the  use 


90  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

or  abuse  of  contemplative  pleasures  aflfects  char- 
acter, and  yet  deny  that  these  pleasures  are  imme- 
diately related  to  action. 

But  one  further  observation  seems  to  b.e  required 
in  the  way  of  explanation.  I  have  described 
aesthetic  feelings  as  "members  of  a  great  class." 
What  does  this  mean?  What  are  the  other  mem- 
bers of  the  class?  They  are  many,  and  the  ex- 
periences which  occasion  them  are  infinite  in  their 
variety.  Some  are  emotionally  valueless:  others 
are  worse  than  valueless — they  are  displeasing.  Of 
those  which  possess  value  some  are  closely  allied  to 
aesthetic  feeling  proper — for  instance,  the  delight 
in  what  (outside  art)  is  fitting  and  harmonious,  the 
appreciation  of  neatness,  finish,  and  skill.  Of  a 
different  kind  are  the  pleasures  of  intellectual  ap- 
prehension; those,  for  example,  which  are  aroused 
by  a  far-reaching  scientific  generalisation,  or  the 
solution,  brilliant  in  its  simplicity,  of  some  compli- 
cated and  entangled  problem.  These  pleasures 
may  be  very  vivid;  they  may  also  be  far  removed 
from  all  practical  interests.  They  must  therefore 
be  regarded  as  contemplative,  though  it  would  vio- 
late ordinary  usage  to  describe  them  as  aesthetic. 

There  are,  however,  other  kinds  of  feeling  which 
are  closely  associated  with  the  practical  side  of  life. 
These  always  look  beyond  themselves;  if  not 
prompting  some  action  they  are  always  on  the  edge 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  91 

of  prompting  it.  Action  is  their  fitting  and  charac- 
teristic issue.  Like  the  feelings  which  I  have 
loosely  described  as  contemplative,  they  are  often 
intrinsically  worthless,  or  worse  than  worthless. 
Thus  the  sentiment  of  fear,  though  presumably  it 
has  its  uses,  can  never  in  itself  be  either  agreeable 
or  noble.  But  some  emotions  there  are  belonging 
to  the  active  class  which  possess  the  highest  intrinsic 
value  of  which  we  have  any  knowledge.  Such  is 
love — love  of  God,  of  country,  of  family,  of  friends. 
These  emotions,  like  those  of  fear  or  appetite,  will, 
on  fit  occasions,  inevitably  result  in  deeds;  nor  can 
they  be  considered  genuine,  if  in  this  respect  they 
fail.  But  they  have  an  inherent  value  apart  from 
their  practical  effects.  We  cannot  measure  their 
worth  solely  by  their  external  consequences:  if  we 
attempt  it,  we  fall  inevitably  into  the  gravest  error. 
The  distinction,  it  should  be  observed,  between 
these  two  classes  of  feelings  does  not  necessarily 
imply  that  they  are  excited  by  different  kinds  of  ob- 
jects. On  the  contrary,  the  same  object  may,  and 
constantly  does,  excite  feelings  of  both  kinds.  The 
splendours  of  a  tempestuous  sunset  seen  from  a 
sheltered  balcony  give  contemplative  delight  of  a 
high  order.  The  same  spectacle,  seen  by  a  footsore 
traveller  across  a  naked  moor,  may  be  only  a  spur 
to  painful  effort.  A  trumpet  heard  in  a  concert- 
room  merely  heightens  an  orchestral  effect;  heard 


92  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

in  camp,  it  imperiously  calls  to  arms.  And  (to  give 
one  more  illustration)  wars  and  revolutions,  the 
struggles  of  nations  and  of  creeds,  are  one  thing  to 
a  man  who  shares  them,  quite  another  to  the  man 
who  reads  of  them  in  history.  While  history  itself 
is,  to  those  who  study  it  for  sheer  interest  in  the 
doings  of  mankind,  an  art,  and  one  of  the  greatest ; 
to  those  who  study  it  that  they  may  "learn  its  les- 
sons," refute  a  political  opponent,  or  pass  a  com- 
petitive examination,  no  more  than  a  branch  of 
useful  knowledge. 

Here,  then,  we  have  two  great  divisions  of  feel- 
ing— the  one  self-sufficing,  contemplative,  not  look- 
ing beyond  its  own  boundaries  nor  except  by  acci- 
dent prompting  to  action;  the  other  lying  at  the 
root  of  conduct,  always  having  some  external  ref- 
erence, supplying  the  immediate  motive  for  all  the 
doings  of  mankind.  Of  highest  value  in  the  con- 
templative division  is  the  feeling  of  beauty;  of 
highest  value  in  the  active  division  is  the  feeling  of 
love.  It  is  with  these  two  only  that  I  am  here  con- 
cerned, and  it  is  on  the  comparison  between  them 
that  my  final  contention  is  founded. 

For  what  was  it  that  occasioned,  and  I  hope  jus- 
tified, this  excursion  into  regions  apparently  far 
removed  from  the  primary  subject  of  this  lecture? 
It  was  the  desire  to  mitigate  as  far  as  possible  the 
conclusions  to  which,  in  the  vain  search  for  some 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  93 

standard  of  sesthetic  excellence,  we  seemed  irresist- 
ibly driven.  I  see  no  method  of  refuting  those  con- 
clusions; the  arguments  on  which  they  rest,  to  me 
at  least,  appear  irresistible.  But  are  they  so  very 
alarming?  Do  they  necessarily  lead  to  a  perverse 
and  sceptical  individualism?  Does  the  destruction 
of  aesthetic  orthodoxy  carry  with  it,  as  an  indirect 
but  inevitable  consequence,  the  diminution  of 
sesthetic  values?  I  think  not.  And  I  think  not, 
because  no  such  consequences  follow  from  a  like 
state  of  things  in  the  great  class  of  feelings  which  I 
have  described  as  active  or  "practical."  Love  is 
governed  by  no  abstract  principles.  It  obeys  no 
universal  rules.  It  knows  no  objective  standard. 
It  is  obstinately  recalcitrant  to  logic.  Why  should 
we  be  impatient  because  we  can  give  no  account  of 
the  characteristics  common  to  all  that  is  beautiful, 
when  we  can  give  no  account  of  the  characteris- 
tics common  to  all  that  is  lovable?  It  may  be  easy 
enough  for  the  sociologist  to  explain  in  general 
terms  how  necessary  it  is  for  the  well-being  of  any 
community  that  there  should  be  found  among  its 
members  a  widespread  capacity  for  disinterested 
affection.  And  it  is  not  hard  to  show  that,  in  the 
general  interests,  it  is  highly  desirable  that  this  af- 
fection should  flow,  in  the  main,  along  certain  well- 
defined  channels.  It  is  better,  for  example,  that  a 
man  should  love  his  own  country  and  his  own  f  am- 


94  CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY 

ily,  than  someone  else's  country  and  someone  else's 
family.  But  though  ethical,  religious,  and  utili- 
tarian considerations  are  thus  bound  up  more 
closely  with  our  practical  emotions  than  with  our 
contemplative  ones,  we  can  make  abstraction  of 
them  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other.  And  if  we 
do,  will  it  be  found  easier  to  fix  a  measure  of  the 
"lovable"  than  we  have  found  it  to  fix  a  measure  of 
the  beautiful?  I  do  not  believe  it.  We  talk  indeed 
of  some  person  or  some  collection  of  persons 
possessing  qualities  which  deserve  our  love.  And 
the  phrase  is  not  unmeaning.  It  has,  as  we  have 
seen,  its  parallel  in  the  region  of  aesthetics.  But 
love  in  its  intensest  quality  does  not  go  by  deserts, 
any  more  than  aesthetic  feeling  in  its  intensest  qual- 
ity depends  on  any  measurable  excellence.  That  is 
for  every  man  most  lovable  which  he  most  dearly 
loves.  That  is  for  every  man  most  beautiful  which 
he  most  deeply  admires.  Nor  is  this  merely  a  reit- 
eration of  the  old  adage  that  there  is  no  disputing 
about  tastes.  It  goes  far  deeper;  for  it  implies 
that,  in  the  most  important  cases  of  all,  a  dispute 
about  either  love  or  beauty  would  not  merely  be 
useless :  it  would  be  wholly  unmeaning. 

Let  us,  then,  be  content,  since  we  can  do  no 
better,  that  our  admirations  should  be  even  as  our 
loves.  I  do  not  offer  this  advice  as  a  theory  of 
aesthetics,  nor  even  as  a  substitute  for  such  a  theory. 


CRITICISM  OF  BEAUTY  95 

I  must  repeat,  indeed,  that  so  far  as  I  am  con- 
cerned, it  represents  a  point  of  view  which  is  not 
tolerable,  even  provisionally,  miless  there  be  added 
to  it  some  mystical  reference  to  first  and  final 
causes.  This,  however,  opens  a  train  of  thought  far 
outside  the  scope  of  the  present  lecture ;  far  outside 
the  scope  of  any  lecture  that  I  am  qualified  to  de- 
liver. For  us,  here  and  now,  it  must  sufiice  that 
however  clearly  we  may  recognise  the  failure  of 
critical  theory  to  establish  the  "objective"  reality  of 
beauty,  the  failure  finds  a  parallel  in  other  regions 
of  speculation,  and  that  nevertheless,  with  or  with- 
out theoretical  support,  admiration  and  love  are 
the  best  and  greatest  possessions  which  we  have  it 
in  our  power  to  enjoy. 


PART  ONE:    SPECULATIVE 

III:   BERGSON'S  CREATIVE 
EVOLUTION 


Ill 

BERGSON'S  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION* 


I  HAVE  been  requested  by  the  Editor  of  the 
Hibbert  Journal  to  indicate  the  bearing  which  M. 
Bergson's  Involution  creatrice  has  upon  the  line  of 
speculation  which  I  have  long  endeavoured  to  rec- 
ommend to  those  who  are  interested  in  such 
matters. 

If  I  accept  the  invitation,  it  is  not  because  I  im- 
agine that  any  widespread  interest  is  felt  in  my 
philosophical  opinions,  still  less  because  I  suppose 
them  to  provide  a  standard  of  comparison  against 
which  such  theories  as  those  of  M.  Bergson  may 
fittingly  be  measured.  It  is  rather  because,  in  deal- 
ing with  a  writer  whose  range  is  so  wide,  some  lim- 
itation of  commentary  is  desirable;  and,  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  the  limitation  suggested  by  the 
Editor  is  the  one  most  suited  to  my  particular  ca- 
pacities.   It  may  involve  some  appearance  of  ego- 

*  Article  contributed  to  the  Hibbert  Journal,  October  IQll. 

09 


100  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

tism;  but  I  trust  the  reader  will  understand  that  it 
is  appearance  only. 

The  problems  in  which  philosophy  is  interested 
may,  of  course,  be  approached  from  many  sides; 
and  schemes  of  philosophy  may  be  cast  in  many 
moulds.  The  great  metaphysical  systems — those 
which  stand  out  as  landmarks  in  the  history  of 
speculation — have  commonly  professed  some  all- 
inclusive  theory  of  reality.  In  their  theories  of  the 
One  and  the  Many,  it  is  the  One  rather  than  any 
individual  specimen  of  the  Many  which  has  mainly 
interested  them.  In  the  sweep  of  their  soaring 
speculation,  the  individual  thinker,  and  the  matters 
which  most  closely  concern  him,  vanish  into  negli- 
gible particularity.  There  is  room  for  them,  of 
course,  because  in  such  systems  there  is  room  for 
everything.    But  they  hardly  count. 

Now  it  must  be  owned  that  when  the  universe 
is  in  question,  we  and  our  affairs  are  very  unim- 
portant. But  each  several  man  has  a  position,  as 
of  right,  in  his  own  philosophy,  from  which  nothing 
can  exclude  him.  His  theory  of  things,  if  he  has 
one,  is  resolvable  into  separate  beliefs,  which  are 
his  beliefs.  In  so  far  as  it  is  a  reasoned  theory, 
these  beliefs  must  be  rationally  selected;  and  in 
every  system  of  rationally  selected  beliefs  there 
must  be  some  which  are  accepted  as  inferences, 
while  there  must  be  others  whose  acceptability  is 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  101 

native,  not  derived,  which  are  believed  on  their  own 
merits,  and  which,  if  the  system  were  ever  com- 
pleted, would  be  the  logical  fomidations  of  the 
whole.  Some  beliefs  may  indeed  have  both  attri- 
butes; the  light  they  give  may  be  in  part  original, 
in  part  reflected.  We  may  even  conceive  a  system 
tentatively  constructed  out  of  elements  which  are 
first  clearly  seen  to  be  true  only  when  they  are 
looked  at  as  parts  of  a  self-evident  whole;  cases  in 
which  one  might  almost  say  (but  not  quite)  that  the 
conclusion  is  the  proof  of  the  premises,  rather  than 
the  premises  of  the  conclusion. 

It  will  be  observed  that  this  way  of  looking  at 
philosophy  makes  each  individual  thinker  the  cen- 
tre of  his  own  system — not,  of  course,  the  most  im- 
portant element  in  it  as  known,  but  the  final  au- 
thority which  justifies  him  in  saying  he  knows  it. 
The  ideal  order  of  beliefs  as  set  out  in  such  a  sys- 
tem would  be  the  order  of  logic — not  necessarily 
formal  logic,  but  at  least  an  order  of  rational  inter- 
dependence. There  is,  however,  another  way  in 
which  beliefs  might  be  arranged — namely,  the 
causal  order.  They  may  be  looked  at  from  the  point 
of  view  proper  to  psychology,  instead  of  from  that 
proper  to  philosophy.  They  may  be  looked  at  not 
merely  as  premises  but  as  causes,  not  merely  as  con- 
clusions but  as  effects ;  and  so  looked  at,  it  is  at  once 
obvious  that  among  the  causes  of  belief  reasons 


102  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

often  play  a  very  trifling  part,  and  that  among  the 
effects  of  reason  we  cannot  count  conclusions  which 
logically  might  be  drawn,  but  in  fact  are  not. 

This  general  way  of  considering  philosophic 
problems,  which  throws  the  primary  stress  not  on 
what  is  first  in  the  absolute  order  of  reality,  nor 
first  in  order  of  practical  interest,  but  what  is  first 
in  order  of  logic  for  the  individual  thinker,  was 
forced  upon  me  (I  speak  of  a  time  more  than  forty 
years  ago)  by  a  condition  of  things  in  the  world  of 
speculation  which  has  since  greatly  changed.  In 
those  days,  at  least  at  the  English  Universities,  the 
dominating  influences  were  John  Mill  and  Herbert 
Spencer — Mill  even  more  than  Spencer.  Their 
doctrines,  or  a  general  attitude  of  mind  in  harmony 
with  their  doctrines,  penetrated  far  more  deeply 
into  the  mental  tissue  of  the  "enlightened"  than  has 
been  the  case  with  subsequent  philosophies.  The 
fashionable  creed  of  "advanced"  thinkers  was  scien- 
tific agnosticism.  And  the  cardinal  principles  of 
scientific  agnosticism  taught  that  all  knowledge 
was  from  experience,  that  all  experience  was  of 
phenomena,  that  all  we  can  learn  from  the  expe- 
rience of  phenomena  are  the  laws  of  phenomena, 
and  that  if  these  are  not  the  real,  then  is  the  real  un- 
knowable. To  their  "credo"  was  appended  an  ap- 
propriate anathema,  condemning  all  those  who  be- 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  103 

lieved  what  they  could  not  prove,  as  sinners  against 
reason  and  truth. 

Theories  like  these  were  a  challenge ;  a  challenge, 
however,  that  could  be  taken  up  in  more  ways  than 
one.  It  might  be  said,  as  metaphysics  and  theology 
did  say,  that  reason,  properly  interrogated,  car- 
ries us  far  beyond  phenomena  and  the  laws  of 
phenomena.  On  the  other  hand,  attention  might 
be  concentrated  not  on  what  the  agnostics  said  was 
unknowable,  but  on  what  they  said  was  known.  If 
the  great  desideratum  is  untrammelled  criticism  of 
beliefs,  let  us  begin  with  the  beliefs  of  "positive 
knowledge."  If  we  are  to  believe  nothing  but  what 
we  can  prove,  let  us  see  what  it  is  that  we  can  prove. 

I  attempted  some  studies  on  these  lines  in  a  work 
published  in  1879.^  And  I  am  still  of  opinion  that 
the  theory  of  experience  and  of  induction  from  ex- 
perience needs  further  examination;  that  the  rela- 
tion between  a  series  of  beliefs  connected  logically, 
and  the  same  beliefs  mixed  up  in  a  natural  series 
of  cause  and  effects,  involves  speculative  difficulties 
of  much  interest;  and  that  investigations  into  the 
ultimate  grounds  of  belief  had  better  begin  with 
the  beliefs  which  everybody  holds  than  with  those 
which  are  held  only  by  a  philosophic  or  religious 
minority. 

It  is  true  that  isolated  fragments  of  these  prob- 

*  A  Defence  of  Philosophic  Doubt.  ^ 


104  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

lems  have  long  interested  philosophers.  Achilles 
still  pursues  the  tortoise,  and  the  difficulties  of  the 
chase  still  provide  a  convenient  text  on  which  to 
preach  conflicting  doctrines  of  the  Infinite.  The 
question  as  to  what  exactly  is  given  in  immediate 
experience,  and  by  what  logical  or  inductive  proc- 
ess anything  can  be  inferred  from  it;  the  nature 
of  causation,  the  grounds  of  our  conviction  that 
Nature  obeys  laws,  how  a  law  can  be  discovered, 
and  whether  "obeying  laws"  is  the  same  as  having  a 
determined  order — these,  or  some  of  these,  have  no 
doubt  been  subjects  of  debate.  But  even  now  there 
is  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  any  thoroughgoing  treat- 
ment of  the  subject  as  I  conceive  it;  and  certainly 
Mill,  who  was  supposed  to  have  uttered  the  last 
word  on  empirical  inference,  stared  helplessly  at 
its  difficulties  through  two  volumes  of  logic,  and 
left  them  unsolved  at  the  end. 

It  was  not  on  these  lines,  however,  that  the  reac- 
tion against  the  reigning  school  of  philosophy  was 
to  be  pursued.  In  the  last  twenty  years  or  so  of 
the  nineteenth  century  came  (in  England)  the 
great  idealist  revival.  For  the  first  time  since 
Locke  the  general  stream  of  British  philosophy  re- 
joined, for  good  or  evil,  the  main  continental  river. 
And  I  should  suppose  that  now  in  1911  the  bulk  of 
philosophers  belong  to  the  neo-Kantian  or  neo- 
Hegelian  school.     I  do  not  know  that  this  has 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  105 

greatly  influenced  either  the  general  public  or  the 
scientific  world.  But,  without  question,  it  has 
greatly  affected  not  merely  professed  philosophers, 
but  students  of  theology  with  philosophic  leanings. 
The  result  has  been  that  whereas,  when  Mill  and 
Spencer  dominated  the  schools,  "naturalism"  was 
thought  to  have  philosophy  at  its  back,  that  advan- 
tage, for  what  it  is  worth,  was  transferred  to  re- 
ligion. I  do  not  mean  that  philosophy  became  the 
ally  of  any  particular  form  of  orthodoxy,  but  that 
it  advocated  a  spiritual  view  of  the  Universe,  and 
was  therefore  quite  inconsistent  with  "naturalism." 
Though  I  may  not  count  myself  as  an  idealist,  I 
can  heartily  rejoice  in  the  result.  But  it  could 
obviously  give  me  very  little  assistance  in  my  own 
attempts  to  develop  the  negative  speculations  of 
philosophic  doubt  into  a  constructive,  if  provi- 
sional, system.  With  the  arguments  of  Foiunda- 
tions  of  Belief  I  do  not  propose  to  trouble  the 
reader.  But  it  may  make  clearer  what  I  have  to  say 
about  U^volution  creatrice  if  I  mention  that 
(among  other  conclusions)  I  arrive  at  the  convic- 
tion that  in  accepting  science,  as  we  all  do,  we  are 
moved  by  "values,"  not  by  logic.  That  if  we  ex- 
amine fearlessly  the  grounds  on  which  judgments 
about  the  material  world  are  founded,  we  shall 
find  that  they  rest  on  postulates  about  which  it  is 
equally  impossible  to  say  that  we  can  theoretically 


106  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

regard  them  as  self-evident,  or  practically  treat 
them  as  doubtful.  We  can  neither  prove  them  nor 
give  them  up.  "Concede"  (I  argued)  the  same 
philosophic  weight  to  values  in  departments  of 
speculation  which  look  beyond  the  material  world, 
and  naturalism  will  have  to  be  abandoned.  But  the 
philosophy  of  science  would  not  lose  thereby.  On 
the  contrary,  an  extension  of  view  beyond  phe- 
nomena diminishes  rather  than  increases  the  the- 
oretical difficulties  with  which  bare  naturalism  is 
beset.  It  is  not  by  a  mere  reduction  in  the  area  of 
our  beliefs  that,  in  the  present  state  of  our  knowl- 
edge, certainty  and  consistency  are  to  be  reached. 
Such  a  reduction  could  not  be  justified  by  philos- 
ophy. But  justifiable  or  not,  it  would  be  quite  im- 
practicable.   "Values"  refuse  to  be  ignored. 

A  scheme  of  thought  so  obviously  provisional  has 
no  claim  to  be  a  system.  And  the  question  there- 
fore arises — at  least,  it  arises  for  me — whether  the 
fruitful  philosophic  labours  of  the  last  twenty  years 
have  found  answers  to  the  problem  which  I  find 
most  perplexing?  I  cannot  pretend  to  have  fol- 
lowed as  closely  as  I  should  have  desired  the  re- 
cent developments  of  speculation  in  Britain  and 
America — still  less  in  Germany,  France,  or  Italy. 
Even  were  it  otherwise,  I  could  not  profitably  dis- 
cuss them  within  the  compass  of  an  article.  But 
the  invitation  to  consider  from  this  point  of  view  a 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  107 

work  so  important  as  Ul^volwtion  creatrice,  by  an 
author  so  distinguished  as  M.  Bergson,  I  have 
found  irresistible. 

n 

There  cannot  be  a  topic  which  provides  a  more 
fitting  text  for  what  I  have  to  say  in  this  connec- 
tion than  freedom.  To  the  idealist,  absolute 
spirit  is  free ;  though  when  we  come  to  the  individ- 
ual soul  I  am  not  sure  that  its  share  of  freedom 
amounts  (in  most  systems)  to  very  much.  To  the 
naturalistic  thinker  there  is,  of  course,  no  absolute, 
and  no  soul.  Psychic  phenomena  are  a  function  of 
the  nervous  system.  The  nervous  system  is  mate- 
rial, and  obeys  the  laws  of  matter.  Its  behaviour 
is  as  rigidly  determined  as  the  planetary  orbits,  and 
might  be  accurately  deduced  by  a  being  sufficiently 
endowed  with  powers  of  calculation,  from  the  dis- 
tribution of  matter,  motion,  and  force,  when  the 
solar  system  was  still  nebular.  To  me,  who  am 
neither  idealist  nor  naturalist,  freedom  is  a  reality; 
partly  because,  on  ethical  grounds,  I  am  not  pre- 
pared to  give  it  up;  partly  because  any  theory 
which,  like  "naturalism,"  requires  reason  to  be  me- 
chanically determined,  is  (I  believe)  essentially  in- 
coherent ;  partly  because  if  we  abandon  mechanical 
determinism  in  the  case  of  reason,  it  seems  absurd 
to  retain  it  in  the  case  of  will;  partly  because  it 


108  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

seems  impossible  to  find  room  for  the  self  and  its 
psychic  states  in  the  interstices  of  a  rigid  sequence 
of  material  causes  and  effects.  Yet  the  material 
sequence  is  there;  the  self  and  its  states  are  there; 
and  I  do  not  pretend  to  have  arrived  at  a  satis- 
factory view  of  their  reciprocal  relations.  I  keep 
them  both,  conscious  of  their  incompatibilities. 

A  bolder  line  is  taken  by  M.  Bergson,  and  his 
point  of  view,  be  it  right  or  wrong,  is  certainly  far 
more  interesting.  He  is  not  content  with  refusing 
to  allow  mechanical  or  any  other  form  of  deter- 
minism to  dominate  life.  He  makes  freedom  the 
very  corner-stone  of  his  system — freedom  in  its 
most  aggressive  shape.  Life  is  free,  life  is  spon- 
taneous, life  is  incalculable.  It  is  not  indeed  out  of 
relation  to  matter,  for  matter  clogs  and  hampers  it. 
But  not  by  matter  is  its  direction  wholly  deter- 
mined, not  from  matter  is  its  forward  impulse 
derived. 

As  we  know  it  upon  this  earth,  life  resembles 
some  great  river  system,  pouring  in  many  channels 
across  the  plain.  Our  stream  dies  away  sluggishly 
in  the  sand,  another  loses  itself  in  some  inland  lake, 
while  a  third,  more  powerful  or  more  fortunate, 
drives  its  tortuous  and  arbitrary  windings  further 
and  yet  further  from  the  snows  that  gave  it  birth. 

The  metaphor,  for  which  M.  Bergson  should  not 
be  made  responsible,  may  serve  to  emphasise  some 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  109 

leading  portions  of  his  theory.  What  the  banks  of 
the  stream  are  to  its  current,  that  matter  in  gen- 
eral, and  the  living  organism  in  particular,  is  to  ter- 
restrial life.  They  modify  its  course;  they  do  not 
make  it  move.  So  life  presses  on  by  its  own  inher- 
ent impulse;  not  unhampered  by  the  inert  mass 
through  which  it  flows,  yet  constantly  struggling 
with  it,  eating  patiently  into  the  most  recalcitrant 
rock,  breaking  through  the  softer  soil  in  channels 
the  least  foreseen,  never  exactly  repeating  its  past, 
never  running  twice  the  same  course.  The  meta- 
phor, were  it  completed,  would  suggest  that  as  the 
rivers,  through  all  the  windings  imposed  on  them 
by  the  channel  which  they  themselves  have  made, 
press  ever  towards  the  sea,  so  life  has  some  end  to 
which  its  free  endeavours  are  directed.  But  this 
is  not  M.  Bergson's  view.  He  objects  to  teleology 
only  less  than  to  mechanical  determinism.  And,  if 
I  understand  him  aright,  the  vital  impulse  has  no 
goal  more  definite  than  that  of  acquiring  an  ever 
fuller  volume  of  free  creative  activity. 

But  what  in  M.  Bergson's  theory  corresponds  to 
the  sources  of  these  multitudinous  streams  of  life? 
Whence  come  they?  The  life  we  see — the  life  of 
plants,  of  animals,  of  men — ^has  its  origin  in  the 
single  life  which  he  calls  super-consciousness,  above 
matter  and  beyond  it;  which  divides,  like  the  snow- 
fields  of  our  simile,  into  various  lines  of  flow,  cor- 


110  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

responding  to  the  lines  of  organic  development  de- 
scribed by  evolutionary  biology.  But  as  the  orig- 
inal source  of  organic  life  is  free,  indeterminate, 
and  incalculable,  so  this  quality  never  utterly  disap- 
pears from  its  derivative  streams,  entangled  and 
thwarted  though  they  be  by  matter.  Life,  even  the 
humblest  life,  does  not  wholly  lose  its  original 
birthright,  nor  does  it  succumb  completely  to  its 
mechanical  environment. 

Now  it  is  evident  that  if  the  ultimate  reality  is 
this  free  creative  activity,  time  must  occupy  a  posi- 
tion in  M.  Bergson's  philosophy  quite  other  than 
that  which  it  holds  in  any  of  the  great  metaphysical 
systems.  For  in  these,  time  and  temporal  relation 
are  but  elements  within  an  Absolute,  itself  con- 
ceived as  timeless;  whereas  M.  Bergson's  Absolute 
almost  resolves  itself  into  time — evolving,  as  it  were 
by  a  free  effort,  new  forms  at  each  instant  of  a  con- 
tinuous flow.  A  true  account  of  the  Absolute 
would  therefore  take  the  form  of  history.  It  would 
tell  us  of  the  Absolute  that  has  been  and  is,  the 
Absolute  "up  to  date."  Of  the  Absolute  that  is  to 
be,  no  account  can  be  given;  its  essential  contin- 
gency puts  its  future  beyond  the  reach  of  any 
powers  of  calculation,  even  were  those  powers 
infinite  in  their  grasp. 

Now  this  view  of  reality,  expounded  by  its  author 
with  a  wealth  of  scientific  as  well  as  of  philosophical 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  ill 

knowledge  which  must  make  his  writings  fascinating 
and  instructive  to  those  who  least  agree  with  them, 
suggests  far  more  questions  than  it  would  be  pos- 
sible merely  to  catalogue,  much  less  to  discuss, 
within  the  limits  of  this  paper.  But  there  is  one 
aspect  of  the  theory  from  my  point  of  view  of 
fundamental  interest  on  which  something  must  be 
said — I  mean  the  relation  of  M.  Bergson's  free  cre- 
ative consciousness  to  organised  life  and  to  unor- 
ganised matter — to  that  physical  Universe  with 
which  biology,  chemistry,  and  physics  are  concerned. 

This  subject  may  be  considered  from  three  points 
of  view :  ( 1 )  the  relation  of  organic  life  to  the  mat- 
ter in  which  it  is  immersed;  (2)  the  relation  of 
primordial  life  and  consciousness  to  matter  in  gen- 
eral; (3)  our  justification  for  arriving  at  conclu- 
sions under  either  of  these  heads. 

M.  Bergson,  while  denying  that  life — ^will — 
consciousness,  as  we  know  them  on  this  earth  of 
ours,  are  mere  functions  of  the  material  organism, 
does  not,  as  we  have  seen,  deny  that  they,  in  a  sense, 
depend  on  it.  They  depend  on  it  as  a  workman 
depends  on  a  tool.    It  limits  him,  though  he  uses  it. 

Now  the  way  in  which  life  uses  the  organism  in 
which  it  is  embodied  is  by  releasing  at  will  the 
energy  which  the  organism  has  obtained  directly  or 
indirectly  from  the  sun — directly  in  the  case  of 
plants,  indirectly  in  the  case  of  animals.    The  plants 


112  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

hoard  much  but  use  little.  The  animals  appropriate 
their  savings. 

To  M.  Bergson,  therefore,  organised  life  essen- 
tially shows  itself  in  the  sudden  and  quasi-explosive 
release  of  these  accumulations.  Indeed  he  carries 
this  idea  so  far  as  to  suggest  that  any  material 
system  which  should  store  energy  by  arresting  its 
degradation  to  some  lower  level,^  and  should  pro- 
duce effects  by  its  sudden  liberation,  would  exhibit 
something  in  the  nature  of  life.  But  this  is  surely 
going  too  far.  There  are  plenty  of  machines  used 
for  manufacturing  or  domestic  purposes  which  do 
just  this;  while  in  the  realm  of  Nature  there  seems 
no  essential  physical  distinction  between  (on  the 
one  hand)  the  storing  up  of  solar  radiation  by  plants 
and  its  discharge  in  muscular  action;  and  (on  the 
other)  the  slow  production  of  aqueous  vapour,  and 
its  discharge  during  a  thunderstorm  in  torrential 
rain.  Yet  all  would  admit  that  the  first  is  life,  while 
the  second  is  but  mechanism. 

It  is  rash  to  suggest  that  a  thinker  like  M.  Berg- 
son has  wrongly  emphasised  his  own  doctrines.  Yet 
I  venture,  with  great  diffidence,  to  suggest  that  the 
really  important  point  in  this  part  of  his  theory,  the 
point  where  his  philosophy  breaks   finally   with 

^  This  refers  to  the  second  law  of  thermodynamics.  It  is 
interesting  to  observe  that  M.  Bergson  regards  this  as  philo- 
sophically more  important  than  the  first  law. 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  113 

"mechanism,"  the  point  where  freedom  and  indeter- 
minism  are  really  introduced  into  the  world  of  space 
and  matter,  is  only  indirectly  connected  with  the 
bare  fact  that  in  organic  life  accumulated  energy  is 
released.  What  is  really  essential  is  the  manner  of 
its  release.  If  the  release  be  effected  by  pure  mech- 
anism, fate  still  reigns  supreme.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  there  be  anything  in  the  mode  of  release, 
however  trifling,  which  could  not  be  exhaustively 
accounted  for  by  the  laws  of  matter  and  motion, 
then  freedom  gains  a  foothold  in  the  very  citadel  of 
necessity.  Make  the  hair-trigger  which  is  to  cause 
the  discharge  as  delicate  as  you  please,  yet  if  it  be 
pulled  by  forces  dependent  wholly  upon  the  con- 
figuration and  energy  of  the  material  universe  at 
the  moment,  you  are  nothing  advanced.  Determin- 
ism still  holds  you  firmly  in  its  grip.  But  if  there 
be  introduced  into  the  system  a  new  force — in  other 
words,  a  new  creation — though  it  be  far  too  minute 
for  any  instrument  to  register,  then  if  it  either  pull 
the  trigger  or  direct  the  explosion,  the  reality  of 
contingency  is  established,  and  our  whole  conception 
of  the  physical  world  is  radically  transformed. 

This,  I  conceive,  must  be  M.  Bergson's  view. 
But  his  theory  of  the  relation  between  life — freedom 
— will,  on  the  one  side,  and  matter  on  the  other, 
goes  much  further  than  the  mere  assertion  that  there 
is  in  fact  an  element  of  contingency  in  the  move- 


114  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

ments  of  living  organisms.  For  he  regards  this 
both  as  a  consequence  and  as  a  sign  of  an  effort 
made  by  creative  will  to  bring  mechanism  more  and 
more  under  the  control  of  freedom.  Such  efforts 
have,  as  biology  tells  us,  often  proved  abortive. 
Some  successes  that  have  been  won  have  had  again 
to  be  surrendered.  Advance,  as  in  the  case  of  many 
parasites,  has  been  followed  by  retrogression.  By 
comparing  the  molluscs,  whose  torpid  lives  have 
been  repeating  themselves  without  sensible  varia- 
tion through  all  our  geological  records,  with  man,  in 
whom  is  embodied  the  best  we  know  of  conscious- 
ness and  will,  we  may  measure  the  success  which 
has  so  far  attended  the  efforts  of  super-conscious- 
ness in  this  portion  of  the  Universe. 

I  say,  in  this  portion  of  the  Universe,  because 
M.  Bergson  thinks  it  not  only  possible  but  probable 
that  elsewhere  in  space  the  struggle  between  free- 
dom and  necessity,  between  life  and  matter,  may 
be  carried  on  through  the  sudden  liberation  of  other 
forms  of  energy  than  those  which  plants  accumulate 
by  forcibly  divorcing  the  oxygen  and  the  carbon 
atoms  combined  in  our  atmosphere.  The  specula- 
tion is  interesting,  though,  from  the  point  of  view 
of  science,  somewhat  hazardous.  From  the  point  of 
view  of  M.  Bergson's  metaphysic,  however,  it  is 
almost  a  necessity.  For  his  metaphysic,  like  every 
metaphysic,  aims  at  embracing  all  reaUty;  and  as 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  115 

the  relation  between  life  and  matter  is  an  essential 
part  of  it,  the  matter  with  which  he  deals  cannot  be 
restricted  to  that  which  constitutes  our  negligible 
fraction  of  the  physical  world. 

But  what,  according  to  his  metaphysic,  is  the 
relation  of  life,  consciousness,  in  general,  to  matter 
in  general?  His  theory  of  organic  life  cannot  stand 
alone.  For  it  does  not  get  us  beyond  individual 
living  things,  struggling  freely,  but  separately,  with 
their  own  organisms,  with  each  other,  and  with  the 
inert  mass  of  the  physical  world  which  lies  around 
them.  But  what  the  history  of  all  this  may  be, 
whence  comes  individual  life,  and  whence  comes 
matter,  and  what  may  be  the  fundamental  relation 
between  the  two — this  has  still  to  be  explained. 

And,  frankly,  the  task  of  explanation  for  anyone 
less  gifted  than  M.  Bergson  himself  is  not  an  easy 
one.  The  first  stage,  indeed,  whether  easy  or  not, 
is  at  least  familiar.  M.  Bergson  thinks,  with  other 
great  masters  of  speculation,  that  consciousness, 
life,  spirit  is  the  prius  of  all  that  is,  be  it  physical 
or  mental.  But  let  me  repeat  that  the  prius  is,  in 
his  view,  no  all-inclusive  absolute,  of  which  our 
world,  the  world  evolving  in  time,  is  but  an  aspect 
or  phase.  His  theory,  whatever  its  subsequent 
difficulties  may  be,  is  less  remote  from  common- 
sense.  For  duration  with  him  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
something  pre-eminently  real.    It  is  not  to  be  sep- 


116  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

arated  from  the  creative  consciousness.  It  is  no 
abstract  emptiness,  filled  up  by  successive  happen- 
ings, placed  (as  it  were)  end  to  end.  It  must  rather 
be  regarded  as  an  agent  in  that  continuous  process 
of  free  creation  which  is  life  itself. 

Since,  then,  consciousness  and  matter  are  not 
to  be  regarded  as  entities  of  independent  origin, 
ranged  against  one  another  from  eternity,  like  the 
good  and  evil  principles  of  Zoroaster,  what  is  the 
relation  between  them?  If  I  understand  M.  Berg- 
son  aright,  matter  must  be  regarded  as  a  by-product 
of  the  evolutionary  process.  The  primordial  con- 
sciousness falls,  as  it  were,  asunder.  On  the  one 
side  it  rises  to  an  ever  fuller  measure  of  creative 
freedom ;  on  the  other,  it  lapses  into  matter,  deter- 
minism, mechanical  adjustment,  space.  Space  with 
him,  therefore,  is  not,  as  with  most  other  philoso- 
phers, a  correlative  of  time.  It  has  not  the  same 
rank  (whatever  that  may  be)  in  the  hierarchy  of 
being.  For,  while  Time  is  of  the  essence  of 
primordial  activity,  space  is  but  the  limiting  term 
of  those  material  elements  which  are  no  more  than 
its  backwash. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  for  a  moment  delude  myself 
into  the  belief  that  I  have  made  these  high  specu- 
lations clear  and  easy.  The  reader,  justly  incensed 
by  my  rendering  of  M.  Bergson's  doctrine,  must 
find  his  remedy  in  M.  Bergson's  own  admirable 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  117 

exposition.  I  may,  however,  have  done  enough  to 
enable  me  to  make  intelligible  certain  difficulties 
which  press  upon  me,  and  may,  perhaps,  press  also 
upon  others. 

Ill 

HegeFs  imposing  system  professed  to  exhibit  the 
necessary  stages  in  the  timeless  evolution  of  the 
Idea.  Has  M.  Bergson  any  corresponding  inten- 
tion? The  evolution,  to  be  sure,  with  which  he  deals 
is  not  timeless;  on  the  contrary,  it  is,  as  we  have 
seen,  most  intimately  welded  to  duration — a  differ- 
ence of  which  I  am  the  last  to  complain.  This, 
however,  taken  by  itself,  need  be  no  bar  to  explana- 
tion. But  how  if  we  take  it  in  connection  with  his 
fundamental  principle  that  creative  evolution  is 
essentially  indeterminate  and  contingent?  How 
can  the  movements  of  the  indeterminate  and  the 
contingent  be  explained?  I  should  myself  have 
supposed  the  task  impossible.  But  M.  Bergson 
holds  that  events  which,  because  they  are  contingent, 
even  infinite  powers  of  calculation  could  not  fore- 
see, may  yet  be  accounted  for,  even  by  our  very 
modest  powers  of  thought,  after  they  have  occurred. 
I  own  this  somewhat  surprises  me.  And  my  diffi- 
culty is  increased  by  the  reflection  that  free 
consciousness  pursues  no  final  end,  it  follows  no 
predetermined   design.     It   struggles,   it   expends 


118  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

itself  in  effort,  it  stretches  ever  towards  completer 
freedom,  but  it  has  no  plans.  Now,  when  we  are 
dealing  with  a  fragment  of  this  consciousness  em- 
bodied in  a  human  being,  we  regard  ourselves  as 
having  "explained"  his  action  when  we  have 
obtained  a  rough  idea  of  his  objects  and  of  his 
opportunities.  We  know,  of  course,  that  our  ex- 
planation must  be  imperfect;  we  know  ourselves  to 
be  ignorant  of  innumerable  elements  required  for 
a  full  comprehension  of  the  problem.  But  we  are 
content  with  the  best  that  can  be  got — and  this 
"best,"  be  it  observed,  is  practically  the  same 
whether  we  believe  in  determinism  or  believe  in  free 
will.  Of  primordial  consciousness,  however,  we 
know  neither  the  objects  nor  the  opportunities.  It 
follows  no  designs,  it  obeys  no  laws.  The  sort  of 
explanation,  therefore,  which  satisfies  us  when  we 
are  dealing  with  one  of  its  organic  embodiments, 
seems  hard  of  attainment  in  the  case  of  primordial 
consciousness  itself.  I  cannot,  at  least,  persuade 
myself  that  M.  Bergson  has  attained  it.  Why 
should  free  consciousness  first  produce,  and  then,  as 
it  were,  shed,  mechanically  determined  matter? 
WTiy,  having  done  so,  should  it  set  to  work  to  per- 
meate this  same  matter  with  contingency?  Why 
should  it  allow  itself  to  be  split  up  by  matter  into 
separate  individualities?  Why,  in  short,  should  it 
ever  have  engaged  in  that  long  and  doubtful  battle 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  119 

between  freedom  and  necessity  which  we  call  or- 
ganic evolution? 

It  may  be  replied  that  these  objections,  or  objec- 
tions of  like  pattern,  may  be  urged  against  any 
cosmogony  whatever;  that  the  most  successful 
philosophy  cannot  hope  to  smooth  away  all  difficul- 
ties ;  and  that  in  metaphysics,  as  in  other  aiFairs,  we 
must  be  content,  not  with  the  best  we  can  imagine, 
but  with  the  least  imperfect  we  can  obtain.  To 
this  modest  programme  I  heartily  subscribe.  Yet 
fully  granting  that,  in  the  present  state  of  our 
knowledge,  every  metaphysic  must  be  defective,  we 
cannot  accept  any  particular  metaphysic  without 
some  grounds  of  belief,  be  they  speculative,  em- 
pirical, or  practical;  and  the  question  therefore 
arises — On  what  grounds  are  we  asked  to  accept  the 
metaphysic  of  M.  Bergson? 

This  brings  us  to  what  is  perhaps  the  most  sug- 
gestive, and  is  certainly  the  most  difficult,  portion 
of  his  whole  doctrine — I  mean  his  theory  of  knowl- 
edge. The  magnitude  of  that  difficulty  will  be  at 
once  realised  when  I  say  that  in  M.  Bergson's  view 
not  reason,  but  instinct,  brings  us  into  the  closest 
touch,  the  directest  relation,  with  what  is  most  real 
in  the  Universe.  For  reason  is  at  home,  not  with 
life  and  freedom,  but  with  matter,  mechanism,  and 
space — the  waste  products  of  the  creative  impulse. 
We  need  not  wonder,  then,  that  reason  should  feel 


120  CREATIVE  INVOLUTION 

at  home  in  the  reahn  of  matter ;  that  it  should  suc- 
cessfully cut  up  the  undivided  flow  of  material 
change  into  particular  sequences  which  are  re- 
peated, or  are  capable  of  repetition,  and  which 
exemplify  "natural  laws";' that  it  should  manipulate 
long  trains  of  abstract  mathematical  inference,  and 
find  that  their  remotest  conclusion  fits  closely  to 
observed  fact.  For  matter  and  reason  own,  accord- 
ing to  M.  Bergson,  a  common  origin;  and  the  second 
was  evolved  in  order  that  we  might  cope  successfully 
with  the  first. 

Instinct,  which  finds  its  greatest  development 
among  bees  and  ants,  though  incomparably  inferior 
to  reason  in  its  range,  is  yet  in  touch  with  a  higher 
order  of  truth,  for  it  is  in  touch  with  life  itself. 
In  the  perennial  struggle  between  freedom  and 
necessity  which  began  when  life  first  sought  to  in- 
troduce contingency  into  matter,  everything,  it 
seems,  could  not  be  carried  along  the  same  line  of 
advance.  Super-consciousness  was  like  an  army 
suddenly  involved  in  a  new  and  difficult  country. 
If  the  infantry  took  one  route,  the  artillery  must 
travel  by  another.  The  powers  of  creation  would 
have  been  overtasked  had  it  been  attempted  to  de- 
velop the  instinct  of  the  bee  along  the  same  evolu- 
tionary track  as  the  reason  of  the  man.  But  man 
is  not,  therefore,  wholly  without  instinct,  nor  does 
he  completely  lack  the  powers  of  directly  appre- 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  121 

bending  life.  In  rare  moments  of  tension,  when  his 
whole  being  is  wound  up  for  action,  when  memory 
seems  fused  with  will  and  desire  into  a  single 
impulse  to  do — then  be  knows  freedom,  then  he 
touches  reality,  then  he  consciously  sweeps  along 
with  the  advancing  wave  of  Time,  which,  as  it 
moves,  creates. 

However  obscure  to  reflective  thought  such  mys- 
tic utterances  may  seem,  many  will  read  them  with 
a  secret  sympathy.  But,  from  the  point  of  view 
occupied  by  M.  Bergson's  own  philosophy,  do  they 
not  suggest  questions  of  difficulty?  How  comes  it 
that  if  instinct  be  the  appropriate  organ  for  appre- 
hending free  reality,  bees  and  ants,  whose  range  of 
freedom  is  so  small,  should  have  so  much  of  it? 
How  comes  it  that  man,  the  freest  animal  of  them 
all,  should  specially  delight  himself  in  the  exercise 
of  reason,  the  faculty  brought  into  existence  to  deal 
with  matter  and  necessity?  M.  Bergson  is  quite 
aware  of  the  paradox,  but  does  he  anywhere  fully 
explain  it? 

This  is,  however,  comparatively  speaking,  a  small 
matter.  The  difficulties  which  many  will  find  in 
the  system,  as  I  have  just  described  it,  lie  deeper. 
Their  first  inclination  will  be  to  regard  it  as  a  fan- 
tastic construction,  in  many  parts  difficult  of  com- 
prehension, in  no  part  capable  of  proof.  They 
will  attach  no  evidential  value  to  the  unverified 


122  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

visions  attributed  to  the  Hjnmenoptera,  and  little 
to  the  flashes  of  illumination  enjoyed  by  man.  The 
whole  scheme  will  seem  to  them  arbitrary  and  un- 
real, owing  more  to  poetical  imagination  than  to 
scientific  knowledge  or  philosophic  insight. 

Such  a  judgment  would  certainly  be  wrong;  and 
if  made  at  all,  will,  I  fear,  be  due  in  no  small 
measure  to  my  imperfect  summary.  The  difficul- 
ties of  such  a  summary  are  indeed  very  great,  not 
through  the  defects  but  the  merits  of  the  author 
summarised.  The  original  picture  is  so  rich  in  sug- 
gestive detail  that  adequate  reproduction  on  a 
smaller  scale  is  barely  possible.  Moreover,  M. 
Bergson's  Involution  creatrice  is  not  merely  a 
philosophic  treatise,  it  has  all  the  charms  and  all  the 
audacities  of  a  work  of  art,  and  as  such  defies  ade- 
quate reproduction.  Yet  let  no  man  regard  it  as 
an  unsubstantial  vision.  One  of  its  peculiarities  is 
the  intimate  and,  at  first  sight,  the  singular  min- 
gling of  minute  scientific  statement  with  the  boldest 
metaphysical  speculation.  This  is  not  accidental; 
it  is  of  the  essence  of  M.  Bergson's  method.  For 
his  metaphysic  may,  in  a  sense,  be  called  empirical. 
It  is  no  a  priori  construction,  any  more  than  it  is  a 
branch  of  physics  or  biology.  It  is  a  philosophy, 
but  a  philosophy  which  never  wearies  in  its  appeals 
to  concrete  science. 

If,  for  example,  you  ask  why  M.  Bergson  sup- 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  123 

poses  a  common  super-physical  source  for  the 
diverging  lines  of  organic  evolution,  he  would  say 
that,  with  all  their  differences,  they  showed  occa- 
sional similarities  of  development  not  otherwise  to 
be  explained;  and  in  proof  he  would  compare  the 
eye  of  the  man  with  the  eye  of  the  mollusc.  If, 
again,  you  asked  him  why,  after  crediting  this  com- 
mon source  of  organic  life  with  consciousness  and 
will,  he  refuses  it  purpose,  he  would  reply  that  evo- 
lution showed  the  presence  of  "drive,"  "impulse," 
creative  "effort,"  but  no  plan  of  operations,  and 
many  failures.  If  you  asked  him  why  he  supposed 
that  matter  as  well  as  life  was  due  to  primordial 
consciousness,  he  would  say  (as  we  have  seen)  that 
in  no  other  manner  can  you  account  for  the  ease 
and  success  with  which  reason  measures,  classifies, 
and  calculates  when  it  is  dealing  with  the  material 
world.  Plainly  this  pre-established  harmony  is  best 
accounted  for  by  a  common  origin. 

It  must  be  owned  that  in  M.  Bergson's  dex- 
terous hands  this  form  of  argument  from  the  pres- 
ent to  the  past  is  almost  too  supple.  Whether 
diverging  lines  of  development  show  unlooked-for 
similarities  or  puzzling  discords  is  all  one  to  him. 
Either  event  finds  him  ready.  In  the  first  case  the 
phenomenon  is  simply  accounted  for  by  community 
of  origin;  in  the  second  case  it  is  accounted  for — 
less  simply — by  his  doctrine  that  each  particular 


124  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

evolutionary  road  is  easily  overcrowded,  and  that 
if  creative  will  insists  on  using  it,  something  must 
be  dropped  by  the  way. 

Even  the  most  abstruse  and  subtle  parts  of  his 
system  make  appeal  to  natural  science.  Consider, 
for  example,  the  sharp  distinction  which  he  draws 
between  the  operations  of  mechanism  and  reason 
on  the  one  side,  creation  and  instinct  on  the  other. 
Reason,  analysing  some  very  complex  organ  like 
the  eye  and  its  complementary  nervous  structure, 
perceives  that  it  is  compounded  of  innumerable 
minute  elements,  each  of  which  requires  the  nicest 
adjustment  if  it  is  to  serve  its  purpose,  and  all  of 
which  are  mutually  interdependent.  It  tries  to 
imagine  external  and  mechanical  methods  by  which 
this  intricate  puzzle  could  have  been  put  together 
— e.g.  selection  out  of  chance  variations.  In  M. 
Bergson's  opinion,  all  such  theories — true,  no 
doubt,  as  far  as  they  go — are  inadequate.  He  sup- 
plements or  replaces  them  by  quite  a  diiFerent  view. 
From  the  external  and  mechanical  standpoint 
necessarily  adopted  by  reason,  the  complexity 
seems  infinite,  the  task  of  co-ordination  impossible. 
But  looked  at  from  the  inside,  from  the  position 
which  creation  occupies  and  instinct  comprehends, 
there  is  no  such  complexity  and  no  such  difficulty. 
Observe  how  certain  kinds  of  wasp,  when  para- 
lysing their  victim,  show  a  knowledge  of  anatomy 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  125 

which  no  morphologist  could  surpass,  and  a  skill 
which  few  surgeons  could  equal.  Are  we  to  sup- 
pose these  dexterities  to  be  the  result  of  innumer- 
able experiments  somehow  bred  into  the  race?  Are 
we  to  suppose  it  the  result,  e.g.  of  natural  selec- 
tion working  upon  minute  variation?  Or  are  we 
to  suppose  it  due  to  some  important  heritable  muta- 
tion? No,  says  M.  Bergson;  none  of  these  explan- 
ations, nor  any  like  them,  are  admissible.  If  the 
problem  was  one  of  mechanism,  if  it  were  as  com- 
plicated as  reason,  contemplating  it  from  without, 
necessarily  supposes,  then  it  would  be  insoluble. 
But  to  the  wasp  it  is  not  insoluble;  for  the  wasp 
looks  at  it  from  within,  and  is  in  touch,  through 
instinct,  with  life  itself. 

This  enumeration  is  far  from  exhausting  the 
biological  arguments  which  M.  Bergson  draws  from 
his  ample  stores  in  favour  of  his  views  on  the  be- 
ginnings of  organic  life.  Yet  I  cannot  feel  sure 
that  even  he  succeeds  in  quarrying  out  of  natural 
science  foundations  strong  enough  to  support  the 
full  weight  of  his  metaphysic.  Even  if  it  be  granted 
(and  by  naturalistic  thinkers  it  will  not  be  granted) 
that  life  always  carries  with  it  a  trace  of  freedom 
or  contingency,  and  that  this  grows  greater  as 
organisms  develop,  why  should  we  therefore 
suppose  that  life  existed  before  its  first  humble 
beginnings  on  this  earth,  why  should  we  call  in 


126  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

super-consciousness?  M.  Bergson  regards  matter 
as  the  dam  which  keeps  back  the  rush  of  life. 
Organise  it  a  little  (as  in  the  Protozoa) — i.e. 
slightly  raise  the  sluice — and  a  little  life  will 
squeeze  through.  Organise  it  elaborately  (as  in 
man) — i.e.  raise  the  sluice  a  good  deal — and  much 
life  will  squeeze  through.  Now  this  may  be  a  very 
plausible  opinion  if  the  flood  of  life  be  really  there, 
beating  against  matter  till  it  forces  an  entry 
through  the  narrow  slit  of  undifferentiated  proto- 
plasm. But  is  it  there?  Science,  modestly  profess- 
ing ignorance,  can  stumble  along  without  it ;  and  I 
question  whether  philosophy,  with  only  scientific 
data  to  work  upon,  can  establish  its  reality. 

In  truth,  when  we  consider  the  manner  in  which 
M.  Bergson  uses  his  science  to  support  his  meta- 
physic,  we  are  reminded  of  the  familiar  theistic 
argument  from  design,  save  that  most  of  the  design 
is  left  out.  Theologians  were  wont  to  point  to  the 
marvellous  adjustments  with  which  the  organic 
world  abounds,  and  ask  whether  such  intelligent 
contrivances  did  not  compel  belief  in  an  intelligent 
contriver.  The  argument  evidently  proceeds  on  the 
principle  that  when  all  imaginable  physical  ex- 
planations fail,  appeal  may  properly  be  made  to  an 
explanation  which  is  metaphysical.  Now,  I  do  not 
say  that  this  is  either  bad  logic  or  bad  philosophy; 
but  I  do  say  that  it  supplies  no  solid  or  immutable 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  127 

basis  for  a  metaphysic.  Particular  applications  of 
it  are  always  at  the  mercy  of  new  scientific  dis- 
covery. Applications  of  the  greatest  possible 
plausibility  were,  as  we  all  know,  made  meaningless 
by  Darwin's  discovery.  Adaptations  which  seemed 
to  supply  conclusive  proofs  of  design  were  found 
to  be  explicable,  at  least  in  the  first  instance,  by 
natural  selection.  What  has  happened  before  may 
happen  again.  The  apparently  inexplicable  may 
find  an  explanation  within  the  narrowest  limits  of 
natural  science.  Mechanism  may  be  equal  to  play- 
ing the  part  which  a  spiritual  philosophy  had 
assigned  to  consciousness.  When,  therefore,  M. 
Bergson  tells  us  that  the  appearance  of  an  organ  so 
peculiar  as  the  eye  in  lines  of  evolution  so  widely 
separated  as  the  molluscs  and  the  vertebrates  im- 
plies not  only  a  common  ancestral  origin,  but  a 
common  pr^-ancestral  origin ;  or  when  he  points  out 
how  hard  it  is  to  account  for  certain  most  compli- 
cated cases  of  adaptation  by  any  known  theory  of 
heredity,  we  may  admit  the  difficulty,  yet  hesitate 
to  accept  the  solution.  We  feel  the  peril  of  basing 
our  beliefs  upon  a  kind  of  ignorance  which  may  at 
any  moment  be  diminished  or  removed. 

Now,  I  do  not  suggest  that  M.  Bergson's  system, 
looked  at  as  a  whole,  suffers  from  this  kind  of  weak- 
ness. On  the  contrary,  I  think  that  if  the  implica- 
tions of  his  system  be  carefully  studied,  it  will  be 


128  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

seen  that  he  draws  support  from  sources  of  a  very 
different  kind,  and  in  particular  from  two  which 
must  be  drawn  upon  (as  I  think)  if  the  inadequacy 
of  naturalism  is  to  be  fully  revealed. 

The  first  is  the  theory  of  knowledge.  If  natu- 
ralism be  accepted,  then  our  whole  apparatus  for 
arriving  at  truth,  all  the  beliefs  in  which  that  truth 
is  embodied,  reason,  instinct,  and  their  legitimate 
results,  are  the  product  of  irrational  forces.  If 
they  are  the  product  of  irrational  forces,  whence 
comes  their  authority?  If  to  this  it  be  replied  that 
the  principles  of  evolution,  which  naturalism  ac- 
cepts from  science,  would  tend  to  produce  faculties 
adapted  to  the  discovery  of  truth,  I  reply,  in  the 
first  place,  that  this  is  no  solution  of  the  difficulty, 
and  wholly  fails  to  extricate  us  from  the  logical 
circle.  I  reply,  in  the  second  place,  that  the  only 
faculties  which  evolution,  acting  through  natural 
selection,  would  tend  to  produce,  are  those  which 
enable  individuals,  or  herds,  or  societies  to  survive. 
Speculative  capacity — ^the  capacity,  for  example,  to 
frame  a  naturalistic  theory  of  the  universe — if  we 
have  it  at  all,  must  be  a  by-product.  What  nature 
is  really  concerned  with  is  that  we  should  eat,  breed, 
and  bring  up  our  young.    The  rest  is  accident. 

Now  M.  Bergson  does  not  directly  interest  him- 
self in  this  negative  argument,  on  which  I  have 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  129 

dwelt  elsewhere/  But  I  think  his  whole  construc- 
tive theory  of  reason  and  instinct  is  really  based  on 
the  impossibility  of  accepting  blind  mechanism  as 
the  source — the  efficient  cause — of  all  our  knowl- 
edge of  reality.  His  theory  is  difficult.  I  am  not 
sure  that  I  am  competent  either  to  explain  or  to 
criticise  it.  But  it  seems  to  me  clear  that,  great  as 
is  the  wealth  of  scientific  detail  with  which  it  is 
illustrated  and  enforced,  its  foundations  lie  far 
deeper  than  the  natural  sciences  can  dig. 

But  it  is  not  only  in  his  theory  of  knowledge  that 
he  shows  himself  to  be  moved  by  considerations 
with  which  science  has  nothing  to  do.  Though  the 
point  is  not  explicitly  pressed,  it  is  plain  that  he 
takes  account  of  "values,"  and  is  content  with  no 
philosophy  which  wholly  ignores  them.  Were  it 
otherwise,  could  he  speak  as  he  does  of  "freedom," 
of  "creative  will,"  of  the  "joy"  (as  distinguished 
from  the  pleasure)  which  fittingly  accompanies  it? 
Could  he  represent  the  universe  as  the  battle- 
ground between  the  opposing  forces  of  freedom 
and  necessity?  Could  he  look  on  matter  as  "the 
enemy"?  Could  he  regard  mechanism,  deter- 
minateness,  all  that  matter  stands  for,  as  not  merely 
in  process  of  subjugation,  but  as  things  that  ought 
to  be  subdued  by  the  penetrating  energies  of  free 
consciousness  ? 

^  For  example^  in  Foundations  of  Belief. 


130  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

This  quasi-ethical  ideal  is  infinitely  removed  from 
pure  naturalism.  It  is  almost  as  far  removed  from 
any  ideal  which  could  be  manufactured  out  of 
empirical  science  alone,  even  granting  what  natu- 
ralism refuses  to  grant,  that  organised  life  exhibits 
traces  of  contingency.  M.  Bergson,  if  I  correctly 
read  his  mind,  refuses — I  think  rightly  refuses — to 
tolerate  conceptions  so  ruinous  to  "values"  as  these 
must  inevitably  prove.  But  can  his  own  conception 
of  the  universe  stand  where  he  has  placed  it?  By 
introducing  creative  will  behind  development,  he 
has  no  doubt  profoundly  modified  the  whole  evo- 
lutionary drama.  Matter  and  mechanism  have  lost 
their  pride  of  place.  Consciousness  has  replaced 
them.  The  change  seems  great;  nay,  it  is  great. 
But  if  things  remain  exactly  where  M.  Bergson 
leaves  them,  is  the  substantial  difference  so  impor- 
tai^t  as  we  might  at  first  suppose?  What  is  it  that 
consciousness  strives  for?  What  does  it  accom- 
plish? It  strives  to  penetrate  matter  with  contin- 
gency. Why,  I  do  not  know.  But  concede  the 
worth  of  the  enterprise.  What  measure  of  success 
can  it  possibly  attain?  A  certain  number  of  organic 
molecules  develop  into  more  or  less  plastic  instru- 
ments of  consciousness  and  will;  consciousness  and 
will,  thus  armed,  inflict  a  few  trifling  scratches  on 
the  outer  crust  of  our  world,  and  perhaps  of  worlds 
elsewhere,  but  the  huge  mass  of  matter  remains 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  131 

and  must  remain  what  it  has  always  been — the  un- 
disputed realm  of  lifeless  determinism.  Freedom, 
when  all  has  happened  that  can  happen,  creeps 
humbly  on  its  fringe. 

I  suggest,  with  great  respect,  that  in  so  far  as 
M.  Bergson  has  devised  his  imposing  scheme  of 
metaphysic  in  order  to  avoid  the  impotent  conclu- 
sions of  naturalism,  he  has  done  well.  As  the 
reader  knows,  I  most  earnestly  insist  that  no  phi- 
losophy can  at  present  be  other  than  provisional; 
and  that,  in  framing  a  provisional  philosophy, 
"values"  may  be,  and  must  be,  taken  into  account. 
My  complaint,  if  I  have  one,  is  not  that  M.  Berg- 
son goes  too  far  in  this  direction,  but  that  he  does 
not  go  far  enough.  He  somewhat  mars  his  scheme 
by  what  is,  from  this  point  of  view,  too  hesitating 
and  uncertain  a  treatment. 

It  is  true  that  he  has  left  naturalism  far  behind. 
His  theory  of  a  primordial  super-consciousness,  not 
less  than  his  theory  of  freedom,  separates  him  from 
this  school  of  thought  as  decisively  as  his  theory 
of  duration,  with  its  corollary  of  an  ever-growing 
and  developing  reality,  divides  him  from  the  great 
idealists.  It  is  true  also  that,  according  to  my  view, 
his  metaphysic  is  religious :  since  I  deem  the  impor- 
tant philosophic  distinction  between  religious  and 
non-religious  metaphysic  to  be  that  God,  or  what- 
ever in  the  system  corresponds  to  God,  does  in  the 


182  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

former  take  sides  in  a  moving  drama,  while,  with 
more  consistency,  but  far  less  truth,  he  is,  in  the 
non-religious  metaphysic,  represented  as  indiffer- 
ently related  to  all  the  multiplicity  of  which  he  con- 
stitutes the  unity/ 

Now,  as  M.  Bergson's  super-consciousness  does 
certainly  take  sides,  and,  as  we  have  seen,  his  sys- 
tem suffers  to  the  full  from  the  familiar  difficulty 
to  which,  in  one  shape  or  another,  all  religious 
systems  (as  defined)  are  liable,  namely,  that  the 
evils  or  the  defects  against  which  the  Creator  is 
waging  war  are  evils  and  defects  in  a  world  of  his 
own  creating.  But  as  M.  Bergson  has  gone  thus 
far  in  opposition  both  to  naturalistic  and  to  meta- 
physical orthodoxies,  would  not  his  scheme  gain  if 
he  went  yet  further?  Are  there  no  other  "values" 
which  he  would  do  well  to  consider?  His  super- 
consciousness  has  already  some  quasi-aesthetic  and 
quasi-moral  qualities.  We  must  attribute  to  it  joy 
in  full  creative  effort,  and  a  corresponding  aliena- 
tion from  those  branches  of  the  evolutionary  stem 

*  This  view,  at  greater  length  and  therefore  with  much  less 
crudity,  is  expounded  in  Foundations  of  Belief,  p.  308.  Since 
writing  this  portion  of  the  text  I  have  seen  Professor  William 
James'  posthumous  volume,  where  an  opposite  opinion  seems 
to  he  expressed.  I  do  not  think,  however,  that  our  disagree- 
ment is  substantial.  I  think  he  means  no  more  than  I  myself 
indicated  earlier  in  this  article.  Let  me  add,  that  the  last 
opinion  I  desire  to  express  is  that  absolute  idealists  are  not 
religious. 


CREATIVE  EVOLUTION  133 

which,  preferring  ease  to  risk  and  effort,  have 
remained  stationary,  or  even  descended  in  the 
organic  scale.  It  may  be  that  other  values  are  diffi- 
cult to  include  in  his  scheme,  especially  if  he  too 
rigorously  banishes  teleology.  But  why  should  he 
banish  teleology?  In  his  philosophy  super-con- 
sciousness is  so  indeterminate  that  it  is  not  per- 
mitted to  hamper  itself  with  any  purpose  more 
definite  than  that  of  self-augmentation.  It  is 
ignorant  not  only  of  its  course,  but  of  its  goal ;  and 
for  the  sufficient  reason  that,  in  M.  Bergson's  view, 
these  things  are  not  only  unknown,  but  unknow- 
able. But  is  there  not  a  certain  incongruity  be- 
tween the  substance  of  such  a  philosophy  and  the 
sentiments  associated  with  it  by  its  author?  Crea- 
tion, freedom,  will — these  doubtless  are  great 
things ;  but  we  cannot  lastingly  admire  them  unless 
we  know  their  drift.  We  cannot,  I  submit,  rest 
satisfied  with  what  differs  so  little  from  the  hap- 
hazard; joy  is  no  fitting  consequence  of  efforts 
which  are  so  nearly  aimless.  If  values  are  to  be 
taken  into  account,  it  is  surely  better  to  invoke  God 
with  a  purpose,  than  super-consciousness  with  none. 
Yet  these  deficiencies,  if  deficiencies  they  be,  do 
little  to  diminish  the  debt  of  gratitude  we  owe  to 
M.  Bergson.  Apart  altogether  from  his  admirable 
criticisms,  his  psychological  insight,  his  charms  of 
style,  there  is  permanent  value  in  his  theories.    And 


134  CREATIVE  EVOLUTION 

those  who,  like  myself,  find  little  satisfaction  in  the 
all-inclusive  unification  of  the  idealist  systems ;  who 
cannot,  either  on  rational  or  any  other  grounds, 
accept  naturalism  as  a  creed,  will  always  turn  with 
interest  and  admiration  to  this  brilliant  experiment 
in  philosophic  construction,  so  far  removed  from 
both. 


PART  ONE:    SPECULATIVE 
IV:    FRANCIS  BACON 


IV 

FRANCIS  BACON  ^ 

From  the  very  moment  at  which  I  rashly  agreed 
to  take  a  leading  part  in  this  ceremony  I  have  been 
occupied  in  repenting  my  own  temerity.  For,  in- 
deed, the  task  which  the  members  of  the  Honour- 
able Society  have  thrown  upon  me  is  one  which  I 
feel  very  ill  qualified  to  perform;  one,  indeed,  which 
has  some  aspects  with  which  many  present  here 
to-day  are  far  more  fitted  to  deal  than  I. 

For  the  great  man  whose  introduction  into 
Gray's  Inn  some  three  hundred  years  ago  we  have 
to-day  met  to  commemorate  was  a  member  of  this 
Society  through  his  whole  adult  life.  Here  he 
lived  before  he  rose  to  the  highest  legal  posi- 
tion in  the  country;  here,  after  his  fall,  he  returned 
to  his  old  friends  and  dwelt  again  among  his  earlier 
surroundings.  It  was  to  this  Inn  that  he  gave  some 
of  his  most  loving  work,  adorning  it,  regulating 
it,  and  taking  a  large  share  both  in  its  pleasures 
and  its  business.    It  would  seem,  therefore,  to  be 

^  Speech  delivered  at  the  unveiling  of  the  memorial  to  Lord 
Bacon  in  the  gardens  of  Gray's  Inn,  June  27,  1912. 

137 


138  FRANCIS  BACON 

fitting  that  the  man  who  unveils  the  memorial  of 
this  distinguished  member  of  Gray's  Inn  should 
himself  be  a  member  of  Gray's  Inn,  and  that  a  man 
who  speaks  in  praise  of  a  Lord  Chancellor  should 
himself  know  something  of  law. 

I  possess,  alas!  neither  of  these  qualifications. 
But  I  am  told  by  those  who  are  more  competent 
than  I  to  form  a  judgment  on  the  subject,  that 
Bacon  showed,  as  we  might  expect,  great  mastery 
of  legal  principles,  and  that  although  he  did  not 
equal  in  learning  that  eminently  disagreeable  per- 
sonage. Sir  Edward  Coke,  yet  that  his  views  upon 
law  reform  were  far  in  advance  of  his  time,  and, 
according  to  some  authorities,  had  even  an  effect 
upon  that  masterpiece  of  codification,  the  Code 
Napoleon. 

However  this  may  be,  I  clearly  have  no  title  to 
say,  and  do  not  mean  to  say,  a  single  word  of  my 
own  upon  Bacon  as  a  lawyer.  Upon  Bacon  as  a 
politician  it  would  not  be  difficult,  and  it  might  be 
interesting,  to  dilate.  Although  I  think  he  lacked 
that  personal  force  which  is  a  necessary  element  in 
the  equipment  of  every  successful  public  man,  he 
yet  possessed  a  breadth  of  view,  a  moderation  of 
spirit,  which,  had  his  advice  been  taken,  might  have 
altered  the  history  of  this  country,  and  even  of 
Europe.  It  might  be  an  attractive  task  for  those 
who  Uke  drawing  imaginary  pictures  of  the  his 


FRANCIS  BACON  139 

torical  "might-have-been,"  to  conceive  a  man  of 
Bacon's  insight  inspiring  the  poHcy  of  a  sovereign 
who  had  the  power  and  the.  wish  to  act  upon  his 
advice.  Had  such  a  combination  existed  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  seventeenth  century  we  might  well 
have  seen  a  development  of  parliamentary  and  con- 
stitutional institutions  effected  at  a  less  cost  than 
civil  war;  and  all  the  bitterness  of  political  and 
religious  strife,  which  so  greatly  hindered  our 
progress  at  home  and  so  effectually  destroyed  our 
influence  abroad,  might  happily  have  been  avoided. 
But  all  this  is  a  dream — a  dream  that  could  never 
have  come  true  under  a  sovereign  like  James  I. 
Am  I  then  to  turn  from  the  part  which  under 
happier  circumstances  Bacon  might  have  played  in 
public  affairs,  and  discuss  the  part  which  in  fact  he 
did  play?  I  confess  that  the  subject  does  not 
attract  me.  Anybody  who  goes  to  the  study  of 
Bacon's  life,  remembering  how  his  fame  has  been 
darkened  by  the  satire  of  Pope  and  the  rhetoric  of 
Macaulay,  must  naturally  desire  to  find  that  these 
great  writers  have  grossly  exaggerated  the  shadows 
upon  their  hero's  character.  And,  indeed,  they 
have  exaggerated.  Bacon  was  not  a  bad  man.  He 
was  not  a  cruel  man.  I  believe  he  loved  justice. 
I  am  sure  he  loved  good  government.  And  yet, 
though  all  this  be  true,  I  do  not  think  his  admirers 
can  draw  much  satisfaction  from  any  impartial 


140  FRANCIS  BACON 

survey  of  his  relations  either  with  his  family,  his" 
friends,  his  pohtical  associates  or  his  political  rivals. 
Much  worse  men  than  Bacon  have  had  more  inter- 
esting characters.  They  may  have  committed 
crimes,  both  in  public  and  in  private  life,  from  which 
Bacon  would  have  shrunk  in  horror.  But  though 
we  condemn  them,  we  are  interested  in  them.  I  do 
not  think  we  ever  feel  any  interest  in  Bacon  the 
politician.  Neither  his  relations  with  Essex,  nor 
with  Salisbury,  nor  with  Buckingham,  nor  with 
Queen  Elizabeth,  nor  with  James  I,  put  him,  how- 
ever we  look  at  the  matter,  in  a  very  attractive 
light.  He  had  not  a  high  courage.  I  doubt  his 
capacity  for  uncalculating  generosity.  I  could 
have  wished  him  a  little  more  pride.  I  suspect,  in- 
deed, that  his  deficiencies  in  these  respects  militated 
even  against  his  worldly  fortunes.  Such  men  are 
used  in  public  life,  but,  as  a  rule,  they  are  neither 
greatly  loved  nor  greatly  trusted. 

But  do  not  let  us  talk  of  Bacon  as  though  his 
career  were  a  great  tragedy.  It  was  nothing  of 
the  sort.  He  was  a  philosopher  and  he  was  a 
statesman;  and  in  the  age  in  which  he  lived  there 
were  no  two  professions  which  promised  the  cer- 
tainty of  a  more  uneasy  life  or  the  chance  of  a  more 
disagreeable  death.  His  first  patron,  Essex,  died 
on  the  scaffold.  His  second  patron,  Buckingham, 
was  stabbed  by  Felton;  and   if  you  turn  from 


FRANCIS  BACON  141 

statesmen  to  philosophers,  how  restless  was  the 
life  of  Descartes,  how  unhappy  the  career  of 
Galileo,  how  tragic  the  end  of  Giordano  Bruno! 
Now,  these  were  Bacon's  conteanporaries — these 
were  the  politicians  with  whom  he  was  most 
closely  connected  and  the  philosophers  who  made 
his  age  illustrious.  How  much  more  fortunate  was 
his  career  than  theirs!  He  had  not  to  flee  from 
place  to  place  for  fear  of  persecution,  like  Des- 
cartes. He  suffered  no  long  imprisonment,  like 
Galileo.  He  was  never  threatened  with  the  execu- 
tioner's axe,  or  the  assassin's  dagger.  Nor  did  he 
go  to  the  stake,  like  Bruno.  And  however  low  some 
may  rate  hereditary  honours,  everybody  will,  I 
think,  admit  that  it  is  better  to  be  made  a  viscount 
than  to  be  burnt. 

If  I  now  pass  from  those  aspects  of  Bacon's 
life  with  which,  for  one  reason  or  another,  I  am 
either  unqualified  or  unwilling  to  deal,  I  am  com- 
pelled by  a  process  of  exhaustion  to  consider  Bacon 
as  a  man  of  letters,  an  historian,  and  a  philosopher. 
He  was  all  three — a  writer  of  the  most  noble  prose, 
a  man  richly  endowed  with  the  qualities  that  make 
an  historian,  a  philosopher  whose  advent  marked 
the  beginning  of  a  great  epoch.  As  a  philosopher 
his  fate  has  been  mixed.  He  has  been  magnificent- 
ly praised,  both  in  this  country  and  abroad,  by  men 
whose  praise  is  worth  much;  he  has  been  violently 


142  FRANCIS  BACON 

abused  by  men  whose  abuse  cannot  be  lightly  thrust 
aside;  and — worst  fate  of  all — his  achievements 
have  been  vulgarised  by  some  of  his  most  ardent  ad- 
mirers. I  do  not  think  this  is  the  occasion  on  which 
it  would  be  fitting  to  attempt  a  full  and  balanced 
judgment  on  the  precise  position  which  Bacon  oc- 
cupies in  the  history  of  European  philosophy.  He 
has  been  regarded  both  by  enemies  and  by  friends 
as  the  father  of  that  great  empirical  school  of  which 
we  in  this  country  have  produced  perhaps  the  most 
illustrious  members,  though  it  flourished  splendidly 
in  France  during  the  eighteenth  century.  If  this 
claim  be  good  (I  am  not  sure  that  it  is)  Bacon's 
philosophic  position  is,  for  that  reason  if  for  no 
other,  a  proud  one.  For  whatever  we  may  think 
of  Locke  and  his  successors,  the  mark  they  have 
made  on  the  course  of  speculation  can  never  be 
effaced. 

I  do  not,  however,  propose  to  deal  with  these 
niceties  of  philosophic  history.  I  shall  probably 
better  meet  your  wishes  if  I  try  to  say  in  a  very  few 
words  what  I  think  was  the  real  nature  of  the  debt 
which  the  world  owes  to  Bacon;  and  why  it  is  that, 
amid  universal  approval,  we  are  met  here  to-day 
to  pay  this  tribute  to  his  memory. 

We  shall  make  (I  think)  a  great  mistake  if  we 
try  to  prove  that  Bacon  was,  what  he  always  said 
he  was  not,  a  maker  of  systems.    He  had  neither 


FRANCIS  BACON  143 

the  desire,  nor  I  believe  the  gifts,  which  would  have 
qualified  him  to  be  the  architect  of  one  of  those 
great  speculative  systems  which  exist  for  the  won- 
der, and  perhaps  for  the  instruction,  of  mankind. 
But  if  he  was  not  a  system-maker,  what  was  he? 
He  was  a  prophet  and  a  seer.  No  doubt  he  aimed 
at  more.  He  spent  much  time  in  attacking  his 
philosophical  predecessors,  and  took  endless 
trouble  with  the  details  of  his  inductive  method. 
Of  his  criticisms  it  is  easy  to  say,  and  true,  that 
they  were  often  violent  and  not  always  fair.  Of  his 
inductive  logic  it  is  easy  to  say,  and  true,  that  he 
did  not  produce,  as  he  hoped,  an  instrument  of  dis- 
covery so  happily  contrived  that  even  mediocrity 
could  work  wonders  by  the  use  of  it.  It  is  also  true 
that  he  overrated  its  coherence  and  its  cogency. 
But  this  is  a  small  matter.  I  do  not  believe  that 
formal  logic  has  ever  made  a  reasoner  nor  induc- 
tive logic  a  discoverer.  And  however  highly  we 
rate  Bacon  as  an  inductive  logician,  and  the  fore- 
runner of  recent  thinkers  who  have  developed  and 
perfected  the  inductive  theory,  it  is  not  as  the 
inventor  of  an  investigating  machine  that  Bacon 
lives  in  our  grateful  memory. 

It  is,  however,  quite  as  easy  to  underrate  as  to 
overrate  Bacon's  contribution  to  the  theory  of  dis- 
covery. There  are  critics  who  suppose  him  guilty 
of  believing  that  by  the  mere   accumulation  of 


144  FRANCIS  BACON 

observed  facts  the  secrets  of  Nature  can  be  un- 
locked; that  the  exercise  of  the  imagination  with- 
out which  you  can  no  more  make  new  science  than 
you  can  make  new  poetry,  is  useless  or  dangerous, 
and  that  hypothesis  is  no  legitimate  aid  to  experi- 
mental investigation. 

I  beheve  these  to  be  grave  errors.  I  do  not 
think  that  anybody  who  really  tries  to  make  out 
what  Bacon  meant  by  his  Prerogative  Instances 
and  his  Analogies  will  either  deny  that  he  believed 
in  the  unity  of  Nature,  and  in  our  power  of  co- 
ordinating its  multitudinous  details,  or  will  sup- 
pose that  he  underrated  the  helps  which  the  imag- 
ination, and  only  the  imagination,  can  give  to  him 
who  is  absorbed  in  the  great  task. 

I  return  from  this  digression  on  Baconian 
method  to  the  larger  question  on  which  we  were 
engaged.  I  called  Bacon  a  seer.  What,  then,  was 
it  that  he  saw?  What  he  saw  in  the  first  place  were 
the  evil  results  which  followed  on  the  disdainful 
refusal  of  philosophers  to  adopt  the  patient  attitude 
which  befits  those  who  come  to  nature,  to  learn 
from  her  all  that  she  has  to  teach.  Bacon  is  never 
tired  of  telling  us  that  the  kingdom  of  nature,  like 
the  Kingdom  of  God,  can  only  be  entered  by  those 
who  approach  it  in  the  spirit  of  a  child.  And  there, 
surely,  he  was  right.  There,  surely,  his  eloquence 
and  his  authority  did  much  to  correct  the  insolent 


FRANCIS  BACON  145 

futility  of  those  verbal  disputants  who  thought  they 
could  impose  upon  nature  their  crude  and  hasty 
theories  born  of  unsifted  observations,  interpreted 
by  an  unbridled  fancy. 

I  do  not  mean  to  trouble  you  with  many  extracts. 
But  there  is  one  which  so  vividly  represents  Bacon, 
at  least  as  I  see  him,  that  I  believe  you  will  thank 
me  for  reading  it  to  you. 

"Train  yourselves,"  he  says,  "to  understand  the 
real  subtlety  of  things,  and  you  will  learn  to  despise 
the  fictitious  and  disputatious  subtleties  of  words, 
and  freeing  yourselves  from  such  follies,  you  will 
give  yourselves  to  the  task  of  facilitating — under 
the  auspices  of  divine  compassion — ^the  lawful  wed- 
lock between  the  mind  and  nature.  Be  not  like 
the  empiric  ant,  which  merely  collects ;  nor  like  the 
cobweb-weaving  theorists,  who  do  but  spin  webs 
from  their  own  intestines;  but  imitate  the  bees, 
which  both  collect  and  fashion.  Against  the 
'Nought-beyond'  and  the  ancients,  raise  your  cry 
of  *More-beyond.'  When  they  speak  of  the  'Not^ 
imitable-thunderbolt*  let  us  reply  that  the  thunder- 
bolt is  imitable.  Let  the  discovery  of  the  new  ter- 
restrial world  encourage  you  to  expect  the  dis- 
covery of  a  new  intellectual  world.  The  fate  of 
Alexander  the  Great  will  be  ours.  The  conquests 
which  his  contemporaries  thought  marvellous,  and 
likely   to   surpass   the  belief  of  posterity,   were 


146  FRANCIS  BACON 

described  by  later  writers  as  nothing  more  than  the 
natural  successes  of  one  who  justly  dared  to  despise 
imaginary  perils.  Even  so,  our  triumph  (for  we 
shall  triumph)  will  be  lightly  esteemed  by  those 
who  come  after  us;  justly,  when  they  compare  our 
trifling  gains  with  theirs;  unjustly,  if  they  attribute 
our  victory  to  audacity  rather  than  to  humility,  and 
to  freedom  from  that  fatal  human  pride  which  has 
lost  us  everything,  and  has  hallowed  the  fluttering 
fancies  of  men,  in  place  of  the  imprint  stamped 
upon  things  by  the  Divine  seal." 

There  surely  speaks  the  seer.  There  you  have 
expressed  in  burning  words  the  vehement  faith 
which  makes  Bacon  the  passionate  philosopher  so 
singular  a  contrast  to  Bacon  the  cold  and  somewhat 
poor-spirited  politician.  There  is  the  vision  of 
man's  conquest  over  nature,  seen  in  its  fullness  by 
none  before  him,  and  not  perhaps  by  many  since. 
There  is  recognised  with  proud  humility  the  little 
that  one  individual  and  one  generation  can  accom- 
plish, the  splendour  of  the  results  which  man's 
accumulated  labours  will  secure. 

It  is  no  doubt  easy  to  praise  this  ideal  vulgarly, 
as  it  is  easy  to  belittle  it  stupidly.  It  can  be  made 
to  seem  as  if  the  Baconian  ideal  was  to  add  some- 
thing to  the  material  conveniences  of  life,  and  to 
ignore  the  aspirations  of  the  intellect.  But  this  is 
a  profound  error.    It  is  true  that  (to  use  his  own 


FRANCIS  BACON  147 

phrase)  he  looked  with  "pity  on  the  estate  of  man." 
It  is  true  that  he  saw  in  science  a  powerful  instru- 
ment for  raising  it.  But  he  put  his  trust  in  no 
petty  device  for  attaining  that  great  end.  He  had 
no  faith  in  the  chance  harvests  of  empirical  dis- 
covery. His  was  not  an  imagination  that  crawled 
upon  the  ground,  that  shrank  from  wide  horizons, 
that  could  not  look  up  to  Heaven.  He  saw,  as 
none  had  seen  before,  that  if  you  would  effectually 
subdue  Nature  to  your  ends,  you  must  master  her 
laws.  You  must  laboriously  climb  to  a  knowledge 
of  great  principles  before  you  can  descend  to  their 
practical  employment.  There  must  be  pure  science 
before  there  is  applied  science.  And  though  these 
may  now  appear  truisms,  in  Bacon's  time  they  were 
the  intuitions  of  genius  made  long  before  the  event. 
I  should  like  to  ask  those  more  competent  than 
myself  to  determine  the  period  when  this  prophecy 
of  Bacon  began  in  any  large  measure  to  be  accom- 
plished. I  believe  myself  it  will  be  found  that  only 
recently,  say  within  the  last  three  or  four  genera- 
tions, has  industrial  invention  been  greatly  pro- 
moted by  industrial  research.  Great  discoveries 
were  made  by  Bacon's  contemporaries,  by  his 
immediate  successors,  and  by  men  of  science  in 
every  generation  which  has  followed.  But  the 
effective  application  of  pure  knowledge  to  the  aug- 
mentation of  man's  power  over  nature  is  of  com- 


148  FRANCIS  BACON 

paratively  recent  growth.  You  may  find  early 
examples  here  and  there ;  but,  broadly  speaking,  the 
effect  which  science  has  had  and  is  now  having,  and 
in  increasing  measure  is  predestined  to  have,  upon 
the  fortunes  of  mankind,  did  not  declare  itself  by 
unmistakable  signs  until  a  century  and  a  half  or 
two  centuries  had  passed  since  the  death  of  the 
great  man  who  so  eloquently  proclaimed  the 
approach  of  the  new  age. 

You  may  say  to  me — Grant  that  all  this  is  true, 
grant  that  Bacon,  in  Cowley's  famous  metaphor, 
looked  from  Pisgah  over  the  Promised  Land,  but 
did  not  enter  therein;  or,  in  his  own  words,  that 
he  sounded  the  clarion,  but  joined  not  in  the  battle 
— what  then?  Did  he  do  anything  for  science  ex- 
cept make  phrases  about  it?  Are  we  after  all  so 
greatly  in  his  debt?  I  answer  that  he  created,  or 
greatly  helped  to  create,  the  atmosphere  in  which 
scientific  discovery  flourishes.  If  you  consider  how 
slightly  science  was  in  his  day  esteemed;  if  you 
remember  the  fears  of  the  orthodox,  the  contempt 
of  the  learned,  the  indifference  of  the  powerful,  the 
ignorance  of  the  many,  you  will  perhaps  agree  that 
no  greater  work  could  be  performed  in  its  interest 
than  that  to  which  Bacon  set  his  hand.  "He  en- 
tered not  the  promised  land."  True;  but  was  it 
nothing  to  proclaim  in  the  hearing  of  a  generation 
wandering  in  the  desert  that  there  is  a  promised 


FRANCIS  BACON  149 

land?  "He  joined  not  in  the  battle."  True;  but 
was  it  nothing  to  blow  so  loud  a  call  that  the  notes 
of  his  clarion  are  still  ringing  in  our  ears?  Let  us 
not  be  ungrateful. 

This  is  a  theme  on  which  much  more  could  be 
said,  but  I  am  sure  that  this  is  not  the  time  to  say 
it.  There  was  a  magnificent  compliment  paid  to 
Bacon's  eloquence  by  Ben  Jonson — a  compliment 
so  magnificent  that,  in  my  private  conviction, 
neither  Bacon  nor  any  other  speaker  has  ever  de- 
served it.  The  poet  alleges  that  the  chief  anxiety 
of  those  who  heard  the  orator  was  lest  his  oratory 
should  come  to  an  end.  This  is  not  praise  which 
in  these  degenerate  days  any  of  us  are  likely  to 
deserve.  But  we  need  not  rush  into  the  other 
extreme :  we  heed  not  compel  our  audience  to  forget 
all  else  in  their  desire  that  we  should  bring  our 
discourse  to  a  speedy  conclusion.  That  trial,  at  all 
events,  I  hope  to  spare  you.  I  will  not  therefore 
dwell,  as  I  partly  intended,  on  such  tempting  sub- 
jects as  the  criticisms  passed  on  Bacon,  and  I  may 
add,  on  Bacon's  countrymen,  by  a  great  meta- 
physician of  the  last  century.  It  may  be  enough 
to  say  that  if  Hegel  thought  little  of  Bacon,  Bacon, 
had  he  known  Hegel,  would  assuredly  have  re- 
turned the  compliment.  He  would  have  regarded 
him  as  exhibiting  the  most  perfect  example  of  what 
he  most  detested  in  a  thinker — the  intellectus  sibi 


150  FRANCIS  BACON 

permissus.  Assuredly  these  great  men  were  not 
made  to  understand  each  other;  though  for  us  the 
very  magnitude  of  their  differences,  by  making 
them  incomparable,  may  allow  us  (if  we  can)  to 
admire  both.  However  this  may  be,  I  shall  have 
played  my  part  if  I  have  succeeded  in  showing 
reason  why  all  who  love  science  for  its  own  sake, 
all  who  "looking  with  pity  on  the  estate  of  man" 
believe  that  in  science  is  to  be  found  the  most 
powerful  engine  for  its  material  improvement, 
should  join  with  this  old  and  famous  Society  in 
doing  honour  to  the  greatest  among  its  members. 


iPART  ONE:    SPECULATIVB 
V:    PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 


IV 

PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  * 

In  accordance  with  precedent,  I  have  to  begin 
my  observations  to  you  by  calling  to  your  recollec- 
tion the  melancholy  fact  that  since  our  last  meet- 
ing we  have  lost  a  most  distinguished  member  of 
our  body — who  by  the  lustre  of  his  name  added 
dignity  to  our  proceedings,  and  who  might,  had 
his  life  been  spared,  have  greatly  promoted  the 
success  of  our  investigations — I  allude  to  Professor 
Hertz.  As  those  of  you  will  know  who  have  had 
the  opportunity  of  following  recent  developments 
of  physical  science,  he  was  the  fortunate  individual 
who  demonstrated  experimentally  the  identity  of 
light  and  of  certain  electro-magnetic  phenomena. 
This  identity  had  been  divined,  and  elaborated  on 
the  side  of  theory,  by  one  of  the  greatest  of  British 
men  of  science.  Clerk  Maxwell,  but  the  theory  had 
never  been  verified  until  Professor  Hertz,  about 
five  years  ago,  startled  Europe  by  the  experi- 
mental identification  of  these  physical  forces.    The 

^  Presidential  Address  to  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research, 
1894. 

153 


154  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

extraordinary  interest  and  the  far-reaching  im- 
portance of  a  discovery  like  this  *  will  not  perhaps 
be  appreciated  by  every  one  of  my  audience,  but 
all  of  those  who  take  an  interest  in  such  subjects 
will  see  that  by  this  stroke  of  genius  a  very  large 
stride  has  been  made  towards  establishing  the  unity 
of  the  great  natural  powers. 

The  mention  of  a  physical  discovery  like  this, 
made  by  one  of  ourselves,  naturally  suggests  reflec- 
tions as  to  our  actual  scientific  position.  What, 
we  feel  tempted  to  ask,  do  such  results  as  we  have 
arrived  at  bear  to  the  general  view  which  science 
has  hitherto  taken  of  that  material  universe  in  which 
we  live?  I  must  confess  that,  when  I  call  to  mind 
the  history  of  these  relations  in  the  past,  the  record 
is  not  one  on  which  at  first  sight  we  can  dwell  with 
any  great  satisfaction.  Consider,  for  example,  the 
attitude  maintained  by  the  great  body  of  scientific 
opinion  towards  the  phenomena  which  used  to  be 
known  as  mesmeric,  but  which  have  now  been  re- 
baptised,  with  Braid's  term,  hypnotic.  As  most  of 
you  are  aware,  it  is  little  more  than  a  century  since 
the  public  attention  of  Europe  was  called  to  these 
extraordinary  facts  by  the  discoveries,  or  redis- 
coveries, of  Mesmer.  Mesmer  produced  hypnotic 
phenomena  of  a  kind  now  familiar  to  everybody, 

*  Written,  of  course,  before  the  modern  development  of 
wireless  telegraphy. 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  155 

and,  not  content  with  that,  he  invented  a  theory  to 
account  for  them.  The  theory  is  an  extremely  bad 
one,  and,  I  imagine,  has  fallen  into  the  disrepute 
which  it  deserves ;  for  Mesmer  committed  the  error, 
not  unfamiliar  in  the  history  of  speculation — ^the 
error,  I  mean,  of  supposing  that  an  effect  has  been 
explained  when  a  name  has  been  given  to  its  un- 
known cause.  He  declared  that  there  was  a  kind 
of  magnetic  fluid  to  the  operations  of  which  the 
results  that  he  obtained  were  due;  and  he  un- 
doubtedly did  his  reputation  much  disservice  in 
the  minds  of  the  scientific  experts  by  associating 
his  discoveries  with  fancies  which  neither  at  the 
time  nor  since  could  stand  the  test  of  critical  in- 
vestigation. Nevertheless,  the  facts  that  Mesmer 
brought  forward  could  be  proved  in  the  last  cen- 
tury, as  they  can  be  proved  now,  by  experimental 
evidence  of  the  most  conclusive  character.  It 
could  be  shown  that  they  are  neither  the  result  of 
deliberate  fraud  nor  of  unconscious  deception; 
and,  accordingly,  there  was  here  a  problem  pre- 
sented for  solution  which  it  was  plainly  the  duty 
of  men  of  science  to  examine;  to  explain  if  they 
could,  but  under  no  circumstances  to  explain  away. 
Their  actual  procedure  was  very  diif  erent.  There 
were,  indeed,  a  good  many  doctors  and  other  men 
of  science  who  could  not  refuse  the  evidence  of 
their  senses,  and  who  loudly  testified  to  the  truth, 


156  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

the  interest,  and  the  importance  of  the  phenomena 
which  they  witnessed.  But  if  you  take  the  body  of 
opinion  of  men  of  science  generally,  you  will  be 
driven  to  the  conclusion  that  they  either  denied 
facts  which  were  obviously  true,  or  that  they  thrust 
them  aside  without  condescending  to  submit  them 
to  serious  investigation.  There  were,  I  believe,  no 
less  than  two  or  three  Commissions  of  inquiry — 
three,  I  think — instituted  in  France  alone,  one  in 
Mesmer*s  lifetime,  and  the  other  two,  unless  my 
memory  deceives  me,  after  his  death.  The  evidence 
thus  collected  by  some  of  the  most  eminent 
scientific  men  in  France,  should  have  been  enough 
to  call  the  attention  of  all  Europe  to  the  new  prob- 
lems thus  raised.  But  it  lay  unnoticed  or  dis- 
believed until  by  a  gradual  process  of  rediscovery, 
by  a  constant  and  up-hill  fight  on  the  part  of  the 
less  prejudiced  members  of  the  community,  the 
truths  of  hypnotism,  as  far  as  they  are  yet  attained, 
have  reached  something  like  general  recognition. 
Even  now,  perhaps,  their  full  importance — 
whether  from  a  therapeutic  or  a  psychological 
point  of  view — has  not  been  sufficiently  ac- 
knowledged. 

Such,  put  very  briefly,  is  the  history  of  the 
relations  between  science  and  one  small  section  of 
the  alleged  phenomena  which  fall  outside  the 
ordinary  range  of  scientific  investigation.     If  we 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  157 

considered  it  by  itself,  we  should  be  tempted  to  say 
that  scientific  men  have  shown  in  this  connection  a 
bigoted  intolerance,  a  contemptuous  indifference  to 
scientific  evidence,  which,  on  the  face  of  it,  is  wholly 
without  excuse.  I,  however,  do  not  feel  inclined 
to  acquiesce  in  so  harsh  a  verdict.  Hard  as  it  may 
seem  to  justify  their  course,  there  was  in  it  a  great 
deal  more  of  practical  wisdom  than  might  appear 
at  first  sight.  I  have  always  been  impressed  by  a 
lesson  which  (as  I  think)  is  taught  us  by  the  gen- 
eral course  of  history,  that  you  cannot  expect, 
either  of  any  single  age  or  of  any  single  nation  or 
of  any  single  profession,  that  it  will  carry  out  im- 
portant original  work  simultaneously  over  the 
whole  field  open  to  its  explorations.  If  they  would 
march  far,  they  must  march  on  a  narrow  front. 
If  they  insist  on  diffusing  their  energies  over  too 
wide  a  surface,  their  labours  will  be  barren.  Now 
just  consider  what  it  is  that  men  of  science  have 
done  in  the  century  which  has  elapsed  since  the  first 
French  Commission  investigated  Mesmer's  dis- 
coveries. I  do  not  believe  it  would  be  going  too  far 
to  say  that  the  whole  body  of  the  sciences,  with  the 
exception  of  mechanics,  has  been  reconstructed 
from  top  to  bottom.  Our  leading  ideas  in  chem- 
istry, our  leading  ideas  in  physics,  the  great  gen- 
eralisations connected  with  the  conservation  and 
dissipation    of    energy,    the    theories    of    light. 


158  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

electricity,  and  sound,  the  whole  of  geology,  every 
fruitful  theory  of  organic  evolution,  were  born  in 
the  hundred  years  which  have  elapsed  since  first 
Mesmer  made  hypnotic  phenomena  notorious 
through  Europe.  I  think,  if  scientific  men,  taxed 
with  their  most  unscientific  treatment  of  this  sub- 
ject, choose  to  say  that,  in  harmony  with  a  certain 
general  conception  of  the  natural  world,  they  were 
laying  deep  the  foundations  of  the  vast  and  im- 
posing fabric  of  modern  science,  I  for  one  should 
accept  the  plea  as  a  bar  to  further  proceedings. 
For  the  men  who  did  that  great  work  could 
scarcely  have  succeeded  had  they  not  rigidly  con- 
fined themselves  to  one  particular  aspect  of  the 
universe  with  which  they  had  to  deal.  Had  they 
insisted  en  including  in  their  survey  not  merely  the 
well-travelled  regions  of  everyday  experience,  but 
the  dark  and  doubtful  territories  within  which  our 
labours  lie,  their  work  would  have  been  worse,  not 
better;  less,  not  more,  complete.  They  may  have 
been  narrow;  but  their  narrowness  has  been  our 
gain.  They  may  have  been  prejudiced;  but  their 
prejudices  have  been  fruitful,  and  we  have  reaped 
the  harvest.  When  surveying  the  history  of  hu- 
man speculation,  we  find  some  individual  who  has 
with  more  or  less  success  anticipated  the  dis- 
coveries of  a  later  age,  but  has  neither  himself  been 
able  to  develop  them  nor  yet  to  interest  his  con- 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  159 

temporaries  in  their  development,  we  are  very  apt 
to  bestow  on  him  an  undue  measure  of  gratitude. 
"Here,"  we  say,  "was  a  man  before  his  time.  Here 
was  a  man  of  whom  his  age  was  not  worthy."  Yet, 
in  fact,  he  has  done  little  to  promote  the  growth  of 
knowledge.  There  is  no  use  in  being  before  one's 
time  after  such  a  fashion  as  this.  If  neither  he 
nor  those  to  whom  he  spoke  could  make  use  of  the 
message  thus  prematurely  delivered,  never  under- 
stood and  immediately  forgotten,  then,  so  far  as 
science  is  concerned,  he  might  without  loss  to  the 
world  have  remained  obstinately  mute.  To 
posterity  he  will  be  interesting,  but  hardly  useful. 
He  will  earn  their  admiration,  without  otherwise 
deserving  any  large  measure  of  their  thanks. 

This,  however,  is  merely  a  parenthetical  reflec- 
tion, which,  after  all,  has  little  to  do  with  the  gen- 
eral drift  of  the  argument  that  I  desire  to  lay 
before  you.  The  question  I  wish  you  to  consider 
is  this:  admitting  that  men  of  science  had,  if  not 
a  theoretical  excuse,  still  a  practical  justification, 
for  the  course  they  have  commonly  adopted  in  re- 
gard to  these  obscure  psychical  phonemena,  is  that 
justification  still  valid?  For  myself,  I  think  it  is 
not.  I  think  the  time  has  now  come  when,  in  all 
our  interests,  the  leaders  of  scientific  thought  should 
recognise  that  there  are  well-attested  facts  which 
cannot  be  any  longer  ignored  merely  because  they 


160  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

do  not  easily  fit  into  the  familiar  framework  of  the 
sciences.  They  certainly  call  for  explanation ;  and 
science,  if  true  to  itself,  should  examine  them  with 
an  open  mind. 

I  am,  of  course,  aware  that  our  experimental 
work  is  hampered  by  difficulties  undreamed  of  in 
ordinary  laboratories ;  they  are  of  a  kind  unfamiliar 
to  scientific  men,  and  not  unnaturally  rouse  in  their 
minds  both  dislike  and  suspicion.  To  begin  with, 
they  must  be  on  their  guard  against  self-deception, 
and  sometimes  against  fraud.  The  scientific  man 
no  doubt  finds  the  path  of  ordinary  experimental 
investigation  strewn  with  obstacles,  but  at  least  he 
does  not  usually  find  among  them  the  difficulty 
presented  by  moral  frailty.  He  knows  that,  if  he 
errs,  it  is  the  fault  of  the  observer,  not  the  fault  of 
the  observed.  He  knows  that,  if  his  interrogation 
of  nature  fails  to  elicit  anything  of  interest,  it  is 
because  he  has  failed  in  his  cross-examination,  not 
because  nature,  when  put  in  the  witness-box,  tells 
untruths.  But  we  of  this  Society  are  less  happily 
situated.  Deception,  conscious  or  unconscious, 
makes  observation  doubly  and  trebly  difficult,  and 
throws  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  investigator 
which  his  happier  brother  working  in  the  region  of 
physical  science  has  not  to  contend  with. 

And  there  is  yet  another  difficulty  in  our  path 
from  which  those  who  cultivate  physical  science 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  161 

are  happily  free.  They  have,  as  the  ultimate 
sources  of  their  knowledge,  the  "five  senses"  which 
are  the  only  generally  recognised  inlets  through 
which  the  truths  of  external  nature  can  penetrate 
into  consciousness.  But  we  have  apparently  to 
deal  with  cases  in  which  not  merely  the  normal 
senses,  but  some  abnormal  and  half-completed 
sense,  so  to  speak,  comes  into  play;  in  which  we 
have  to  collaborate  with  fellow-workers  excep- 
tionally organised,  who  can  neither  describe,  ac- 
count for,  nor  control,  the  imusual  powers  they 
appear  to  possess. 

This  is  not  only  a  source  of  perplexity  and  diffi- 
culty to  ourselves;  it  is  a  stumbling-block  to  the 
scientific  specialists  whose  aid  we  seek.  There  are 
many  who  think  that,  because  we  cannot  repeat  our 
experiments  and  verify  our  results  cls  we  will  and 
when  we  will,  the  experiments  are  not  worth  mak- 
ing, and  the  results  are  little  better  than  illusion. 
But  this  is,  I  venture  to  say,  a  very  unphilosophic 
view  of  the  subject.  Is  there,  after  all,  any  a  priori 
improbability  in  there  being  these  half -formed  and 
imperfectly  developed  senses,  or  inlets  of  external 
information,  occasionally  and  sporadically  de- 
veloped in  certain  members  of  the  human  race? 
Surely  not.  I  should  myself  be  disposed  to  say 
that,  if  our  accepted  views  on  development  be  really 
sound,  phenomena  like  these,  however  strange,  are 


162  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

exactly  what  we  should  have  expected.  For  what 
says  the  theory  of  natural  selection?  It  tells  us 
among  other  things  that  there  have  gradually  been 
elaborated,  by  the  extinction  of  the  unfit  and  the 
survival  of  the  fit,  organisms  possessed  of  senses 
adapted  to  further  their  success  in  the  struggle  for 
existence.  To  suppose  that  these  senses  should  be 
in  full  correspondence  with  the  whole  of  external 
nature,  appears  to  me  to  be  not  only  improbable, 
but,  on  any  rational  doctrine  of  probability,  abso- 
lutely impossible.  There  must  be  countless  forms 
of  being,  countless  real  existences,  which,  had  the 
line  of  our  evolution  gone  in  a  different  direction, 
or  had  the  necessities  of  our  primitive  ancestors 
been  of  a  different  kind,  would  have  made  them- 
selves known  to  us  through  senses  the  very  char- 
acter of  which  we  are  at  present  unable  to  imagine. 
And,  if  this  be  so,  is  it  not  in  itself  likely  that  here 
and  there  we  should  come  across  rudimentary  be- 
ginnings of  such  senses;  beginnings  never  de- 
veloped and  probably  never  to  be  developed  by  the 
operation  of  selection;  mere  by-products  of  the 
great  evolutionary  machine,  never  destined  to  be 
turned  to  any  useful  account?  And  it  may  be — I 
am  only  hazarding  an  unverifiable  guess — it  may 
be,  I  say,  that  in  the  case  of  individuals  thus  ab- 
normally endowed,  we  really  have  come  across 
faculties  which,  had  it  been  worth  nature's  while. 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  163 

had  they  been  of  any  value  or  purpose  in  the 
struggle  for  existence,  might  have  been  generally 
developed,  and  become  the  common  possession  of 
the  whole  human  race.  Had  this  occurred,  we 
should  have  been  enabled  to  experiment  upon  phe^ 
nomena,  which  we  now  rega^^d  as  occult  and  mys- 
terious, with  the  same  confidence  in  the  sources  of 
our  information  that  we  now  enjoy  in  any  of  our 
ordinary  inquiries  into  the  laws  of  the  material,  or 
at  least  of  the  organic,  world.  If  this  be  so,  I  do 
not  think  that  men  of  science  ought  to  show  any 
excessive  or  distrustful  impatience  of  the  apparent 
irregularity  which  no  doubt  constitutes  one  of  the 
most  provoking  characteristics  of  these  abnormal 
phenomena. 

But  there  is  another  difficulty,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  science,  attaching  to  some  apparent  results 
of  our  investigations,  which  is  not  disposed  of  by 
the  theory  which  I  have  just  suggested.  Suppose, 
for  the  sake  of  argument,  that  a  certain  proportion 
of  the  human  race  possess  abnormal  powers  of  per- 
ception in  a  very  rudimentary  form — it  is  evident 
that  they  may  give  rise  to  two  kinds  of  experience. 
They  may  give  us  a  kind  of  experience  which  shall 
be  perfectly  congruous  with  our  existing  concep- 
tion of  the  physical  universe,  or  they  may  give  us 
one  which  harmonises  with  that  conception  imper- 
fectly or  not  at  all.    As  an  example  of  the  first  I 


164  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

might  revert,  by  way  of  illustration,  to  the  dis- 
covery, previously  referred  to,  of  Professor  Hertz. 
He,  as  I  have  already  reminded  you,  has  experi- 
mentally proved  that  ordinary  light  is  a  case  of 
electro-magnetic  radiation.  Light  consists,  as  you 
all  know,  of  undulations  of  what  is  known  as  the 
luminif erous  ether ;  electro-magnetic  waves  are  also 
undulations  of  the  same  ether,  differing  from  the 
undulations  which  we  call  light  only  in  their  length. 
Now,  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that  we  might  have  a 
sense  which  would  enable  us  to  perceive  the  long 
undulations  in  the  same  way  as  we  now  perceive  the 
short  ones.  That  would  be  a  new  sense,  but,  though 
new,  its  deliverances  would,  without  the  least  diffi- 
culty, have  fitted  in  with  the  existing  notions  which 
scientific  men  have  framed  of  the  universe.  But, 
unfortunately,  in  our  special  investigations  we 
seem  to  come  across  experiences  which  are  not  so 
amenable.  We  apparently  get  hints  of  occurrences 
which,  if  they  be  well  established,  as  they  appear 
to  be,  cannot,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  by  any  amount 
of  manipulation,  be  squeezed  into  the  accepted  pat- 
tern of  the  natural  world ;  and  if  that  be  so,  then  we 
are  indeed  engaged  in  a  work  of  prodigious  diffi- 
culty, but  of  an  importance  of  which  the  difficulty 
is  the  measure  and  the  proof.  For  we  should  then 
be  actually  on  the  threshold  of  a  region  ordered 
according  to  jaws  which  are  not  merely  unknown, 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  165 

but  which  to  all  appearance  have  little  congruity 
with  those  which  govern  the  regions  already  within 
our  ken. 

Let  me  dwell  on  this  point  a  little  more,  as  it  is 
one  of  central  interest  to  all  who  are  engaged  in 
our  special  investigations.  What  I  am  asserting  is 
that  the  facts  which  we  come  across  are  very  odd 
facts.  I  do  not  mean  merely  queer  and  unexpected : 
I  mean  "odd"  in  the  sense  that  they  are  out  of 
harmony  with  the  accepted  theories.  They  may  or 
may  not  be  strange  and  striking;  but  they  are 
"odd"  in  the  sense  that  whether  dull  or  dramatic 
they  seem  to  jar  with  the  views  which  men  of 
science  and  men  of  common  sense  generally  enter- 
tain about  the  universe  in  which  we  live. 

In  order  to  illustrate  this  distinction,  I  will  take 
two  very  simple  instances.  I  suppose  everybody 
would  say  that  it  would  be  an  extraordinary  cir- 
cumstance if  our  earth,  on  its  journey  through 
space,  were  suddenly  to  perish  by  collision  with 
some  unknown  body  travelling  across  our  path. 
Yet,  though  such  an  event  would  be  dramatic  and 
terrible,  it  is,  after  all,  one  of  which  no  astronomer 
would  assert  the  impossibility.  He  would  say,  I 
suppose,  that  it  was  most  unlikely,  but  that,  if  it 
occurred,  it  would  involve  no  change  in  astronomi- 
cal theory.  Our  globe,  with  the  rest  of  the  solar 
system,  is  hurrying,  I  do  not  know  how  many  miles 


166  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

a  second,  in  the  direction  of  the  constellation 
Hercules.  There  is  no  a  priori  ground  for  sup- 
posing that  in  the  course  of  this  mysterious  journey, 
of  whose  cause  we  are  absolutely  ignorant,  we  may 
not  come  across  some  wanderer  in  interstellar 
space  which  will  produce  the  uncomfortable  results 
which  I  have  ventured  to  indicate.  Indeed,  dur- 
ing the  last  two  hundred  years,  astronomers  have 
themselves  been  witness  to  stellar  tragedies  of  in- 
comparably greater  magnitude  than  that  which 
would  be  produced  by  the  destruction  of  so  petty 
a  planet  as  the  one  which  we  happen  to  inhabit. 
We  have  seen  stars  which  shine  from  incalculable 
distances,  and  are  of  unknown  magnitude,  burst 
into  sudden  conflagration,  blaze  for  a  time  with 
portentous  brightness,  and  then  slowly  sink  into 
obscurity.  What  that  phenomenon  precisely  in- 
dicates we  cannot  say,  but  it  certainly  suggests  a 
catastrophe  far  more  tremendous  than  the  sudden 
destruction  of  our  particular  world,  which  to  us 
would,  doubtless,  seem  sufficiently  startling. 

This,  then,  is  a  specimen  of  an  event  which,  how- 
ever strange,  easily  harmonises  with  our  existing 
scientific  conceptions.  Contrast  with  this  a  class  of 
(alleged)  occurrences  which  at  first  sight,  and  to 
many  observers,  may  appear  commonplace  and 
familiar,  but  which  falls  altogether  outside  ordi- 
nary scientific  explanation.    I  have  constantly  met 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  167 

people  who  tell  you,  with  no  apparent  conscious- 
ness of  saying  anything  more  out  of  the  way  than  a 
remark  about  the  weather,  that  by  the  exercise  of 
their  will  they  can  make  anybody  at  a  little  dis- 
tance turn  round  and  look  at  them.  Now  such  a 
fact  (if  fact  it  be)  is  far  more  scientifically 
extraordinary  than  would  be  the  destruction  of  this 
globe  by  some  such  celestial  catastrophe  as  the  one 
I  have  imagined;  and  greatly  mistaken  are  they 
who  think  that  this  exercise  of  "will  power,"  as 
they  call  it,  is  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world, 
something  that  everybody  would  have  anticipated, 
something  which  hardly  deserves  scientific  notice  or 
requires  scientific  explanation.  In  reality  it  is  a 
profound  mystery  if  it  be  true,  and  no  event,  how- 
ever startling,  which  can  be  shown  to  fit  naturally 
into  the  structure  of  the  physical  sciences  should 
excite  half  so  much  intellectual  curiosity  as  this 
trifling  and  seemingly  commonplace  phenomenon. 
Now,  most  of  the  persons  who  suppose  them- 
selves to  be  endowed  with  this  so-called  will  power 
are,  I  should  imagine,  the  dupes  of  a  too  credulous 
fancy.  But  putting  their  testimony  on  one  side, 
there  remains  a  vast  mass  of  evidence  in  favour  of 
what  we  now  call  telepathy;  and  to  telepathy  the 
observations  I  have  been  making  do  in  my  opinion 
most  strictly  apply.  For,  consider!  In  every  case 
of  telepathy  you  have  an  example  of  action  at  a 


168  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

distance.  Examples  of  real  or  apparent  action  at 
a  distance  are,  of  course,  very  common.  Gravita- 
tion is  such  an  example.  We  have  not  yet  dis- 
covered any  mechanism,  if  I  may  use  the  phrase, 
which  can  transmit  gravitational  influence  from  one 
body  to  another.  Nevertheless,  scientific  men  do 
not  rest  content  with  that  view.  I  recollect  it  used 
to  be  maintained  by  the  late  Mr.  John  Mill  that 
there  was  no  ground  for  regarding  with  any  spe- 
cial wonder  the  phenomenon  of  action  at  a  distance. 
He  may  have  been  right,  but  I  do  not  think  you 
will  find  a  first-rate  physicist  who  is  prepared  to 
admit  that  gravity  calls  for  no  explanation.  He  is 
not  ready,  in  other  words,  to  accept  action  at  a 
distance  as  an  ultimate  fact,  though  he  has  not  as 
yet  found  any  clue  to  the  real  nature  of  the  links 
by  which  the  attracting  bodies  act  and  react  upon 
one  another. 

But  though  gravitation  and  telepathy  are  alike 
in  this,  that  we  are  quite  ignorant  of  the  means  by 
which  in  either  case  distant  entities  influence  one 
another,  it  would  be  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that 
the  two  modes  of  operation  are  equally  mysterious. 
In  the  case  of  telepathy,  there  is  not  merely  the 
difficulty  which  it  shares  with  gravitation,  the  diffi- 
culty, I  mean,  of  conjecturing  the  nature  of  the 
mechanism  which  operates  between  the  agent  and 
the  patient,  between  the  man  who  influences  and 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  169 

the  man  who  is  influenced ;  but  what  happens  seems 
quite  out  of  harmony  with  any  of  our  accepted  ideas 
as  to  the  mode  in  which  force  ordinarily  acts 
through  space  unoccupied  by  matter.  Is  this 
telepathic  action  a  simple  case  of  action  from  a 
centre  of  disturbance?  Is  it  like  the  light  of  the 
sun,  radiating  equally  in  every  direction?  If  it  is, 
we  should  expect  it  to  behave  like  other  forces  of 
the  same  kind.  It  ought,  as  it  were,  to  get  beaten 
out  thinner  and  thinner  the  further  it  is  removed 
from  its  original  source — its  effects  diminishing 
with  the  distance,  while  showing  themselves  equally 
in  all  directions.  But  there  is  no  evidence  what- 
ever that  diffusion  of  this  kind  actually  takes  place. 
There  is  no  indication  of  any  disturbance  equal  at 
equal  distances  from  its  point  of  origin,  and 
diminishing  as  the  distance  increases  according  to 
some  assignable  law.  Nothing  like  radiation  ap- 
pears to  be  in  question. 

But  if  we  are  to  reject  this  idea,  which  is  the  first 
that  ordinary  analogies  would  suggest,  what  are  we 
to  put  in  its  place?  Are  we  to  suppose  that  there 
is  some  means  by  which  telepathic  energy  can  be 
directed  through  space  from  mind  to  mind  by  some 
selective  agency?  If  we  are  to  believe  this,  we  are 
face  to  face  not  only  with  a  fact  extraordinary  in 
itself,  but  with  a  kind  of  fact  which  does  not  fit  in 
with  anything  we  know  at  present  in  the  region 


170  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

either  of  physics  or  of  physiology.  It  is  true,  no 
doubt,  that  we  do  know  plenty  of  cases  where 
energy  is  directed  like  water  in  a  pipe,  like  an 
electric  current  in  a  wire,  like  a  bullet  from  a  rifle. 
But,  then,  in  such  cases  there  is  always  some  mate- 
rial cause  of  this  selective  action.  Is  there  any  such 
material  cause  in  the  case  of  telepathy?  There  is 
no  sign  of  it.  We  cannot  form  any  notion  of  its 
character;  and  yet,  if  we  are  to  draw  the  obvious 
conclusion  from  the  facts  obsen'^ed,  some  selective 
guidance,  material  or  immaterial,  there  must  cer- 
tainly be. 

Here,  then,  we  are  face  to  face  with  a  phenom- 
enon which  is  not  less  surprising  from  a  scientific 
point  of  view  because  it  has  no  great  spectacular 
interest.  Anyone  who  endeavours  to  wade  through 
the  mass  of  evidence  collected  by  our  Society  on 
the  subject  will  soon  discover  that  it  makes  small 
appeal  to  our  appetite  for  the  dramatic,  that  it  is 
often  dull,  and  sometimes  tedious.  Dr.  Johnson, 
if  I  rightly  remember,  once  observed  that  the  man 
who  went  to  the  novels  of  Richardson  for  the  story 
had  better  hang  himself.  So  with  equal  reason 
might  we  speak  of  the  man  who  seeks,  in  the  rec- 
ords of  psychical  research,  the  thrill  of  super- 
natural mystery  which  we  justly  demand  from  a 
well-written  ghost  story.  It  must  be  owned  that-, 
on  the  whole,  our  records  make  indiiferent  "copy." 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  171 

Yet  sometimes,  when  they  are  least  entertaining 
from  the  point  of  view  of  literature,  they  are  most 
suggestive  from  the  point  of  view  of  science;  and 
science,  be  it  remembered,  is  our  first  interest. 

Yet  not,  I  freely  admit,  our  only  one.  All 
arbitrary  limitations  of  our  sphere  of  work  are  to  be 
avoided.  To  record,  to  investigate,  to  classify,  and, 
if  possible,  to  explain,  facts  of  a  far  more  startling 
and  impressive  character  than  these  seemingly 
simple  cases  of  telepathy  is  part  of  our  business. 
Let  us  not  neglect  it.  And  if  many  are  animated 
by  a  wish  to  get  evidence,  not  through  any  process 
of  metaphysical  deduction,  but  by  observation  and 
experiment,  that  conscious  beings  exist  unhelped 
and  unhampered  by  organisms  like  our  own,  I  see 
nothing  in  their  action  to  criticise,  much  less  to 
condemn.  But  while  there  is  sufficient  evidence,  in 
my  judgment,  to  justify  all  the  labours  of  our  So- 
ciety in  this  inviting  field  of  research,  it  is  not  the 
field  of  research  which  lies  closest  to  the  ordinary 
subjects  of  scientific  study.  Therefore  it  is  that, 
on  an  occasion  when  I  specially  desired  to  arrest  the 
attention,  and  if  possible  to  engage  the  interest,  of 
men  of  science,  I  content  myself  with  pointing  to 
the  definite  and  very  simple  experiments  which, 
simple  as  they  are,  yet  hint  at  conclusions  not  easily 
reconciled  with  our  customary  views  of  the  physical 
world.     If  these  experiments  have  been  repeated 


172  PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH 

under  tests  sufficiently  crucial  to  prove  that  there  is 
here  something  to  be  explained,  all  interested  in 
science  will  ultimately  be  driven  willingly  or  un- 
willingly to  join  us  in  the  task  of  unravelling  the 
tangled  problems  with  which  this  Society  is  en- 
deavouring to  deal.  With  what  success  such  ef- 
forts will  be  crowned  I  know  not.  I  have  already 
indicated  to  you,  at  the  beginning  of  my  remarks, 
the  special  class  of  difficulties  which  besets  our  path. 
We  are  not  endowed  with  the  appropriate  physical 
senses,  we  are  ill  supplied  with  appropriate  sub- 
jects for  experiment,  we  are  hampered  and  em- 
barrassed at  every  turn  by  credulity,  fraud,  and 
prejudice.  Nevertheless,  if  I  rightly  interpret  the 
conclusions  which  many  years  of  labour  have  forced 
upon  our  members,  and  upon  others  not  among  our 
number  who  are  moved  by  a  like  spirit  of  inquiry, 
it  does  seem  that  outside  the  world  of  nature,  as  we, 
from  the  point  of  science,  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
conceiving  it,  there  does  lie  a  region  in  whose 
twilight  some  experimental  knowledge  may  labori- 
ously be  gleaned;  and  even  if  we  cannot  entertaio 
any  confident  hope  of  discovering  what  laws  its 
dim  and  shadowy  phenomena  obey,  at  all  events  it 
will  be  some  gain  to  have  shown,  not  as  a  matter  of 
speculation  or  conjecture,  but  as  a  matter  of  ascer- 
tained fact,  that  there  are  things  in  heaven  and 


PSYCHICAL  RESEARCH  173 

earth    not    hitherto    dreamed    of    in    naturalistic 
philosophy. 

Note 

This  address  was  dehvered  more  than  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago.  Much  has  happened  since  then;  our  views 
on  the  constitution  of  matter  have  been  revolutionised, 
and  though  I  beHeve  the  general  argument  to  be,  broadly 
speaking,  sound  and  relevant  to  present-day  issues,  I 
should  not  now  dogmatise  quite  so  confidently  as  to  what 
men  of  science  think  about  gravitation,  the  ether,  and 
action  at  a  distance. 


PART  TWO:    POLITICAL 
VI:  ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS 


VI 

ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS  ^ 

You  have  invited  me,  partly  as  a  politician,  partly 
as  a  philosopher,  to  say  something  for  German 
readers  upon  Anglo- German  relations.  I  fear  that 
philosophers  have  little  to  say  about  the  question, 
and  that  politicians  may  easily  say  too  much;  it  is 
therefore  with  great  misgiving  that  I  comply  with 
your  invitation.  I  may  perhaps  do  harm;  I  can- 
not think  it  likely  that  I  shall  do  much  good.  But, 
as  you  appeal  to  me,  I  will  make  the  attempt. 

Let  me  at  once  say  that  I  do  not  propose  to 
adopt  the  attitude  either  of  a  judge  or  of  a  critic. 
I  may  be  able  to  explain,  I  may  be  able  to  diminish 
misunderstanding.  I  am  by  no  means  confident 
that  I  shall  succeed,  but  it  is  the  only  attempt  worth 
making.  If  I  can  present  the  English  point  of  view 
clearly  and  without  offence  to  your  readers,  it  may 
do  something,  however  slight,  to  mitigate  existing 

^  This  article,  written  for  German  readers,  was  contributed 
at  the  request  of  its  editor  to  Nord  und  Siid,  a  well-known 
German  periodical,  two  years  before  the  outbreak  of  war, 
in  June,  1912. 

177 


178  ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS 

evils  in  so  far  as  these  are  due  to  want  of  mutual 
comprehension. 

I  use  the  phrase  "English  point  of  view"  without 
hesitation;  for  I  believe  that  in  this  matter  there  is 
only  one  English  point  of  view.  I  do  not  of  course 
mean  that  every  statement  I  am  going  to  make  is 
consciously  accepted  by  every  Englishman,  nor  if  it 
be  accepted  that  all  Englishmen  hold  it  with  equal 
conviction.  But  I  do  mean  that,  in  a  very  real 
sense,  the  deep  uneasiness  with  which  the  people  of 
this  country  contemplate  possible  developments  of 
German  policy,  throws  its  shadows  across  the  whole 
country,  irrespective  of  party  or  of  creed. 

Why  is  this?  It  cannot  be  attributed  to  preju- 
dices rooted  in  an  historic  past.  The  German 
nation  has  never  been  our  enemy.  In  the  long 
series  of  wars  in  which  Britain  was  involved  be- 
tween the  Revolution  of  1688  and  the  Peace  of 
1815,  we  always  had  German  States  as  our  allies; 
and  few  have  been  the  continental  battles  where 
English  soldiers  have  fought  in  which  no  German 
soldier  was  fighting  in  the  same  cause. 

Nor  are  Englishmen  unmindful  of  their  share 
in  the  great  debt  which  all  the  world  owes  to 
German  genius  and  German  learning.  For  some 
two  hundred  years  Germany  has  been  as  clearly 
first  in  the  art  of  music  as  ever  Italy  was  in  the  art 
of  painting.     She  has  been  the  great  pioneer  in 


ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS    179 

modern  classical  philology,  in  modern  criticism,  in 
modern  historical  research,  in  the  science  of  lan- 
guage, in  the  comparative  study  of  religions. 
Indeed,  she  has  been  much  more  than  merely  a  pio- 
neer. She  has  not  only  shown  how  the  work  should 
be  done,  but  she  has  willingly  taken  upon  herself 
by  far  the  largest  share  of  the  labour  involved  in 
doing  it,  and  has  harvested,  as  was  just,  by  far  the 
largest  share  of  successful  achievement. 

In  the  domain  of  the  natural  sciences  the  story  is 
indeed  less  one-sided.  We  in  Britain  need  not  be 
ashamed  of  the  roll  of  great  men  who  have  con- 
tributed to  the  scientific  developments  which  have 
made  the  last  hundred  years  illustrious.  But  how 
admirable,  both  in  quality  and  quantity,  has  been 
the  German  work  in  these  departments !  How  per- 
fect is  their  organisation  for  research!  How  fruit- 
ful in  discovery ! 

And  what  shall  I  say  of  German  philosophy?  It 
was  of  this  in  particular  that  you  desired  me  to 
speak,  but  in  truth  I  am  not  qualified  to  say  any- 
thing but  what  is  known  and  acknowledged 
throughout  all  countries.  Though  my  small  phil- 
osophic barque  attempts  its  explorations  in  shal- 
lower waters,  I  admire  the  mighty  stream  of  Euro- 
pean speculation,  flowing  since  Leibniz  mainly  in 
German  channels,  which  has  done  so  much  to  sup- 
ply the  world  with  a  spiritual  philosophy.    At  this 


180   ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS 

moment,  as  I  suppose,  four  out  of  every  five  occu- 
pants of  philosophic  chairs  in  countries  speaking 
the  language  of  Locke,  of  Berkeley,  and  of  Hume, 
draw  from  German  sources  both  the  substance  of 
their  teaching  and  its  inspiration.  This  surely  is  a 
great  thing  to  say ;  for  though  philosophers  be  few 
in  both  nations,  we  must  surely  hope  that  their  im- 
portance is  not  measured  simply  by  their  numbers. 

If,  therefore,  recent  years  have  produced  a 
change  in  the  way  in  which  ordinary  Englishmen 
judge  of  German  policy,  it  is  due  to  no  national 
prejudice,  to  no  under-estimate  of  German  worth, 
to  no  want  of  gratitude  for  German  services  in  the 
cause  of  universal  culture.  To  what  then  is  it  due? 
I  reply  that,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  it  is  due  to  the 
interpretation  which  they  have  thought  themselves 
obliged  to  place  upon  a  series  of  facts,  or  supposed 
facts,  each  of  which  taken  by  itself  might  be  of 
small  moment,  but  which  taken  together  can 
neither  be  lightly  treated  nor  calmly  ignored. 

The  first  of  these  facts  (the  first  at  least  to  be 
realised)  was  the  German  Navy  Bill  and  its  results- 
No  Englishman  denies  the  right  of  every  country 
to  settle  the  character  and  magnitude  of  its  own 
armaments ;  and  there  has  been,  I  believe,  no  eager- 
ness to  detect  in  the  German  naval  policy  any  in- 
tentions hostile  to  this  country.  But  on  such  a 
point  British  opinion  is  sensitive,  and  must  be  sen- 


ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS    181 

sitive,  for  reasons  which  are  commonplaces  here,  but 
are,  I  think,  imperfectly  understood  by  many  Ger- 
mans who,  in  general,  are  friendly  to  this  country. 
Let  me  briefly  indicate  their  character. 

If  Englishmen  were  sure  that  a  German  fleet 
was  only  going  to  be  used  for  defensive  purposes — 
i.e.  against  aggression — they  would  not  care  how 
large  it  was ;  for  a  war  of  aggression  against  Ger- 
many is  to  them  unthinkable.  There  are,  I  am  told, 
many  Germans  who  would  strongly  dissent  from 
this  statement.  Yet  it  is  no  paradox.  Putting  on 
one  side  all  considerations  based  on  public  morality, 
it  must  be  remembered,  in  the  first  place,  that  we 
are  a  commercial  nation;  and  war,  whatever  its 
issue,  is  ruinous  to  commerce  and  to  the  credit  on 
which  commerce  depends.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered, in  the  second  place,  that  we  are  a  political 
nation ;  and  an  unprovoked  war  would  shatter  in  a 
day  the  most  powerful  Government  and  the  most 
united  party.  It  must  be  remembered,  in  the  third 
place,  that  we  are  an  insular  nation,  wholly  depend- 
ent on  sea-borne  supplies,  possessing  no  consider- 
able army  either  for  home  defence  or  foreign  serv- 
ice, and  compelled,  therefore,  to  play  for  very  un- 
equal stakes  should  Germany  be  our  opponent  in 
the  hazardous  game  of  war. 

It  is  this  last  consideration  which  I  would  ear- 
nestly ask  enlightened  Germans  to  weigh  well  if 


182   ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS 

they  would  understand  the  British  point  of  view. 
It  can  be  made  clear  in  a  very  few  sentences :  There 
are  two  ways  in  which  a  hostile  country  can  be 
crushed.  It  can  be  conquered,  or  it  can  be  starved. 
If  Germany  were  master  in  our  home  waters,  she 
could  apply  both  methods  to  Britain.  Were  Brit- 
ain ten  times  master  in  the  North  Sea,  she  could 
apply  neither  method  to  Germany.  Without  a 
superior  fleet,  Britain  would  no  longer  count  as  a 
Power.  Without  any  fleet  at  all,  Germany  would 
remain  the  greatest  Power  in  Europe. 

It  is  therefore  the  mere  instinct  of  self-preserva- 
tion which  obliges  Englishmen  not  merely  to  take 
account  of  the  growth  in  foreign  navies,  but  anx- 
iously to  weigh  the  motives  of  those  who  build  them. 
If  they  are  built  solely  for  purposes  of  defence, 
Britain  would  not,  indeed,  be  thereby  relieved  of 
the  duty  of  maintaining  the  standard  of  relative 
strength  required  for  national  safety;  but  she 
would  have  no  ground  for  disquiet,  still  less  for  ill- 
will.  But  does  Germany  make  it  easy  for  Britain 
to  take  this  view?  The  external  facts  of  the  sit- 
uation appear  to  be  as  follows:  the  greatest  mili- 
tary Power  and  the  second  greatest  naval  Power 
in  the  world  is  adding  both  to  her  army  and  to  her 
navy.  She  is  increasing  the  strategic  railways 
which  lead  to  frontier  states — not  merely  to  fron- 
tier   states    which    themselves    possess    powerful 


ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS     183 

armies,  but  to  small  states  which  can  have  no  desire 
but  to  remain  neutral  if  their  formidable  neigh- 
bours should  unhappily  become  belligerents.  She 
is  in  like  manner  modifying  her  naval  arrange- 
ments so  as  to  make  her  naval  strength  instantly 
effective.  It  is  conceivable  that  all  this  may  be 
only  in  order  to  render  herself  impregnable  against 
attack.  Such  an  object  would  certainly  be  com- 
mendable, though  the  efforts  undergone  to  secure 
it  might  (to  outside  observers)  seem  in  excess  of 
any  possible  danger.  If  all  nations  could  be  made 
impregnable  to  the  same  extent,  peace  would 
doubtless  be  costly,  but  at  least  it  would  be  secure. 
Unfortunately,  no  mere  analysis  of  the  German 
preparations  for  war  will  show  for  what  purposes 
they  are  designed.  A  tremendous  weapon  has 
been  forged;  every  year  adds  something  to  its  effi- 
ciency and  power;  it  is  as  formidable  for  purposes 
of  aggression  as  for  purposes  of  defence.  But  to 
what  end  it  was  originally  designed,  and  in  what 
cause  it  will  ultimately  be  used,  can  only  be  deter- 
mined, if  determined  at  all,  by  extraneous  con- 
siderations. 

I  here  approach  the  most  difficult  and  delicate 
part  of  my  task.  Let  me  preface  it  by  saying  that 
ordinary  Englishmen  do  not  believe,  and  certainly 
I  do  not  believe,  either  that  the  great  body  of  the 
German  people  wish  to  make  an  attack  on  their 


184   ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS 

neighbours,  or  that  the  German  Government  in- 
tends it.  A  war  in  which  the  armed  manhood  of 
half  Europe  would  take  part  can  be  no  object  of 
deliberate  desire  either  for  nations  or  for  states- 
men. The  danger  lies  elsewhere.  It  lies  in  the 
co-existence  of  that  marvellous  instrument  of  war- 
fare, the  German  army  and  navy,  with  the  assid- 
uous, I  had  almost  said  the  organised,  advocacy  of 
a  policy  which  it  seems  impossible  to  reconcile  with 
the  peace  of  the  world  or  the  rights  of  nations. 
For  those  who  accept  this  policy  German  develop- 
ment means  German  territorial  expansion.  All 
countries  which  hinder,  though  it  be  only  in  self- 
defence,  the  realisation  of  this  ideal,  are  regarded 
as  hostile ;  and  war,  or  the  threat  of  war,  is  deemed 
the  natural  and  fitting  method  by  which  the  ideal 
itself  is  to  be  accomplished. 

Now  it  is  no  part  of  my  intention  to  criticise  such 
theories.  My  business  is  to  explain  the  views  which 
are  held  in  Britain,  not  to  condemn  those  which  are 
preached  in  Germany.  Let  German  students,  if 
they  will,  redraw  the  map  of  Europe  in  harmony 
with  what  they  conceive  to  be  the  present  distribu- 
tion of  the  Germanic  race ;  let  them  regard  the  Ger- 
man Empire  of  the  twentieth  century  as  the  heir- 
at-law  of  all  territories  included  in  the  Holy 
Roman  Empire  of  the  twelfth;  let  them  assume 
that  Germany  should  be  endowed  at  the  cost  of 


ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS     185 

other  nations  with  overseas  dominions  proportion- 
ate to  her  greatness  in  Europe.  But  do  not  let 
them  ask  Englishmen  to  approve.  We  have  had 
too  bitter  an  experience  of  the  ills  which  flow  from 
the  endeavour  of  any  single  state  to  dominate  Eu- 
rope; we  are  too  surely  convinced  of  the  perils 
which  such  a  policy,  were  it  successful,  would  bring 
upon  ourselves,  as  well  as  upon  others,  to  treat 
them  as  negligible.  Negligible  surely  they  are  not. 
In  periods  of  international  calm  they  always  made 
for  increasing  armaments;  in  periods  of  interna- 
tional friction  they  aggravate  the  difficulties  of  di- 
plomacy. This  is  bad;  but  it  is  not  the  worst. 
Their  effects,  as  it  seems  to  us,  go  deeper.  To  them 
is  due  the  conviction,  widely  held,  I  am  afraid,  by 
many  Germans,  that  Britain  stands  in  their  coun- 
try's light,  that  Englishmen  desire  to  thwart  her 
natural  development,  are  jealous  of  her  most  legit- 
imate growth.  Of  these  crimes  we  are  quite  un- 
conscious; but  surely  it  is  no  slight  evil  that  they 
should  be  so  readily  believed.  If  ever,  by  some 
unhappy  fate,  it  became  an  accepted  article  of  faith 
in  either  nation  that  Germany  and  Britain  were 
predestined  enemies,  that  the  ambitions  of  the  one 
and  the  security  of  the  other  were  irreconcilably 
opposed,  the  predictions  of  those  prophets  (and 
they  abound  in  the  Chancelleries  of  Europe)  who 
regard  a  conflict  between  them  as  inevitable,  would 


186    ANGLO-GERMAN  RELATIONS 

be  already  half -fulfilled.  But  for  myself  I  am  no 
believer  in  such  predestination.  Germany  has 
taught  Europe  much;  she  can  teach  it  yet  more. 
She  can  teach  it  that  organised  military  power  ma\' 
be  used  in  the  interests  of  peace  as  effectually  as 
in  those  of  war;  that  the  appetite  for  domination 
belongs  to  an  outworn  phase  of  patriotism;  that 
the  furtherance  of  civilisation,  for  which  she  has  so 
greatly  laboured,  must  be  the  joint  work  of  many 
peoples ;  and  that  the  task  for  none  of  them  is  light- 
ened by  the  tremendous  burden  of  modern  arma- 
ments, or  the  perpetual  preoccupation  of  national 
self-defence.  If  on  these  lines  she  is  prepared  to 
lead,  she  will  find  a  world  already  prepared  to  fol- 
low— prepared  in  no  small  measure  by  what  she 
has  herself  accomplished  in  the  highest  realms  of 
science  and  speculation.  But  if  there  be  signs  that 
her  desires  point  to  other  objects,  and  that  her 
policy  is  moulded  by  ambitions  of  a  different  type, 
can  it  be  a  matter  of  surprise  that  other  countries 
watch  the  steady  growth  of  her  powers  of  aggres- 
sion with  undisguised  alarm,  and  anxiously  con- 
sider schemes  for  meeting  what  they  are  driven  to 
regard  as  a  common  danger? 


PART  TWO:    POLITICAL 

VII:  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF  GERMAN 
WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR 


vn 

A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF  GERMAN 
WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR  ' 

Until  the  late  Professor  Cramb  published  his 
Germany  and  England,  Treitschke  was  scarcely 
even  a  name  to  the  British  public.  Even  now  his 
name  is  much  better  known  than  his  books.  This  is 
partly  due  to  the  fact  that  his  main  work  was  an 
unfinished  history  of  modern  Germany,  and  that 
much  of  this  dealt  with  the  period  which  began 
with  the  peace  of  1815  and  ended  with  the  Bis- 
marckiaji  era — a  period  rich  in  scientific,  philo- 
sophical, and  musical  achievement,  but  politically 
barren  and,  to  the  foreigner,  dull.  It  is  also  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  full  significance  of  the  political 
theories  to  which  his  lectures  were  devoted  has  only 
recently  been  made  plain.  Political  theories,  from 
those  of  Aristotle  downwards,  have  ever  been  re- 
lated, either  by  harmony  or  contrast,  to  the  political 
practice  of  their  day ;  but  of  no  theories  is  this  more 
glaringly  true  than  of  those  expounded  in  these 

*  Introduction  to  the  English  translation  (Heinrich  von 
Treitschke's  Lectures  on  "Politics")  by  Blanche  Dugdale 
and  Torben  de  Bille,  published  in  19 16. 

1^ 


190  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

volumes.  They  could  not  have  been  written  before 
1870.  Nothing  quite  like  them  will  be  written 
after  1917.  They  bear  somewhat  the  same  relation 
to  Bismarck  as  Machiavelli's  Prince  bears  to  Caesar 
Borgia — though  no  one  would  put  Treitschke  on  a 
level  with  Machiavelli,  or  Borgia  on  a  level  with 
Bismarck. 

Their  author,  bom  in  1834,  and  twenty-seven 
years  old  when  William  I  became  King  of  Prussia, 
with  Bismarck  as  his  Minister,  is  thus  qualified  by 
age  to  represent  the  generation  which,  in  its  youth, 
sought  in  "Liberal  principles"  the  means  of  fur- 
thering its  national  ideals;  found  them  utterly  im- 
potent and  ineffectual;  and  welcomed  with  patri- 
otic fervour  the  Bismarckian  policy  of  "blood  and 
iron." 

It  is  permissible  to  conjecture  that  if  the  political 
creed  of  Treitschke's  youth  had  borne  the  practical 
fruit  which  he  so  passionately  desired,  the  subse- 
quent history  of  the  world  would  have  been  wholly 
different.  If  "liberalism,"  in  the  continental 
sense,*  had  given  Germany  empire  and  power, 

*  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  observe  that  I  use  the  words 
"Liberal  principles"  and  "Liberalism"  in  their  continental, 
not  in  their  British,  meaning.  We  borrowed  them  from  abroad, 
and  have  used  them  to  designate  party,  or,  rather,  a  particular 
section  of  a  particular  party.  But  "Liberalism"  as  used  in  its 
original  home  is  a  name  for  principles  of  constitutional  liberty 
and  representative  government,  which  have  long  been  the  com- 
mon property  of  all  parties  throughout  the  English-speaking 
portions  of  the  world. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       191 

militarism  would  never  have  grown  to  its  present 
exorbitant  proportions.  The  greatest  tragedy  of 
modern  times  is  that  she  owes  her  unity  and  her 
greatness  not  to  the  free  play  of  public  opinion 
acting  through  constitutional  machinery,  but  to  the 
unscrupulous  genius  of  one  great  man,  who  found 
in  the  Prussian  monarchy,  and  the  Prussian  mili- 
tary system,  fitting  instruments  for  securing  Ger- 
man ideals. 

The  main  interest,  then,  of  these  lectures  to  me, 
and  perhaps  to  others,  lies  in  the  fact  that  they  rep- 
resent the  mature  thought  of  a  vigorous  person- 
ality, who,  in  early  manhood,  saw  the  war  with 
Denmark,  the  war  with  Austria,  and  the  war  with 
France,  create,  in  violation  of  all  "Liberal"  prin- 
ciples, that  German  Empire  for  which  German 
Liberals  had  vainly  striven.  War,  it  was  evident, 
could  be  both  glorious  and  cheap;  absolute  mon- 
archy had  shown  itself  the  only  effective  instru- 
ment for  national  self-realisation;  a  diplomatic  and 
military  policy,  carried  through  in  defiance  of  pub- 
lic opinion,  had  performed  in  a  few  months  what 
generations  of  debaters  had  been  unable  to  accom- 
plish. 

It  is  useless,  of  course,  to  look  for  impartiality 
in  political  speculations  born  under  such  conditions. 
Forty  or  fifty  years  ago  the  ordinary  British 
reader  sought  in  German  historical  research  a  ref- 


192  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

uge  from  the  party  bias  so  common  among  British 
historians.  Hmne,  Lingard,  Alison,  Macaulay, 
Carlyle,  Froude,  Freeman — all  in  their  several 
ways  looked  at  their  selected  periods  through 
glasses  coloured  by  their  own  political  or  theolog- 
ical predilections.  Mitford  and  Grote  carried  their 
modem  prejudices  into  their  pictures  of  classical 
antiquity.  But  the  German  historian,  though  his 
true  course  might  perhaps  be  deflected  by  some 
over-ingenious  speculation,  was  free  (we  sup- 
posed) from  these  cruder  and  more  human  sources 
of  error.  He  might  be  dull,  but  he  was  at  least 
fair.  With  the  development  of  German  unity, 
however,  German  impartiality  vanished.  To 
Ranke  succeeded  Von  Sybel  and  Mommsen.  Po- 
litical detachment  could  no  longer  be  looked  for; 
learning  was  yoked  to  politics;  and  history  was 
written  with  a  purpose.  In  no  one  does  this  pa- 
triotic prejudice  produce  more  curious  results  than 
in  Treitschke.  His  loves  and  his  hates,  his  hopes 
and  his  fears,  his  praise  and  his  blame,  his  philo- 
sophic theories,  his  practical  suggestions — all  draw 
their  life  from  the  conviction  that  German  great- 
ness was  due  to  her  military  system,  that  her  mili- 
tary system  was  the  creation  of  Prussia,  and  that 
Prussia  was  the  creation  of  Hohenzollern  abso- 
lutism. 

Consider,  for  example,  his  abstract  theory  of 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       193 

the  state  which  colours  all  his  more  important  po- 
litical speculation.  An  English  writer  who  wished 
to  set  forth  his  views  on  education,  local  govern- 
ment, military  organisation,  and  so  forth,  might 
perhaps  regard  an  abstract  theory  of  the  state  as  a 
superfluous  luxury.  But  then,  as  Treitschke  ex- 
plains in  another  connection,  the  English  are 
"shallow"  and  the  Germans  "profound,"  so  that 
this  difference  of  treatment  was  to  be  expected; 
and  certainly  the  English  reader  has  no  ground  for 
regretting  it.  For  though  the  theory  itself  is 
neither  very  original  nor  very  coherent;  though  its 
appeals  to  history  are  unconvincing;  yet  its  popu- 
larity in  the  country  of  its  birth  gives  the  key  to 
contemporary  history.  It  explains  and  justifies 
modem  Germany.  The  State,  says  Trietschke,  is 
Power.  Of  so  unusual  a  type  is  its  power  that  it 
has  no  power  to  limit  its  power.  Hence  no  treaty, 
when  it  becomes  inconvenient,  can  be  binding; 
hence  the  very  notion  of  general  arbitration  is  ab- 
surd ;  hence  war  is  part  of  the  Divine  order.  Small 
states  must  be  contemptible  because  they  must  be 
weak;  success  is  the  test  of  merit,  power  is  its 
reward;  and  all  nations  get  what  they  deserve. 

A  theory  of  politics  entirely  governed  by 
patriotic  passion  is  not  likely  to  be  either  very 
impartial  or  very  profound.  Even  the  most  dex- 
terous literary  treatment  could  hardly  hide  its  in- 


194  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

herent  narrowness.  But  Trietschke,  to  do  him 
justice,  attempts  no  disguises.  He  airs  his  preju- 
dices with  a  naivete  truly  amazing.  I  will  not  say 
that  he  wanted  humour.  Many  things  struck  him 
as  exquisitely  comic — small  states,  for  example, 
and  the  Dutch  language.  He  occasionally  enliv- 
ened his  lectures,  we  are  told,  by  a  satirical  imita- 
tion of  a  British  "hurrah."  He  clearly,  therefore, 
possessed  his  own  sense  of  fun,  yet  he  remained 
sadly  lacking  in  that  prophylactic  humour  which 
protects  its  possessor  against  certain  forms  of  ex- 
travagance and  absurdity. 

In  nothing  does  this  come  out  more  clearly  than 
in  his  excessive  laudation  of  his  own  countrymen, 
and  his  not  less  excessive  depreciation  of  everybody 
else.  Partly  no  doubt  this  was  done  for  a  purpose. 
He  had  formed  the  opinion,  rather  surprising  to  a 
foreigner,  that  the  Germans,  as  a  nation,  are  im- 
duly  diffident — always  in  danger  of  "enervating 
their  nationality  through  possessing  too  little  rug- 
ged national  pride."  ^  It  must  be  owned  that  very 
little  of  this  weakness  is  likely  to  remain  in  any 
German  who  takes  Trietschke  seriously.  Never- 
theless, it  should  have  been  possible  to  explain  to 
the  German  people  how  much  better  they  are  than 
the  rest  of  the  world  without  pouring  crude  abuse 
upon  every  other  nation.    If  the  German  be  indeed 

^  I.   19-20. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       195 

deficient  in  "rugged  pride,"  by  all  means  tell  him 
what  a  fine  fellow  he  really  is.  But  why  spoil  the 
compliment  by  lowering  the  standard  of  compari- 
son? It  may,  for  example,  be  judicious  to  encour- 
age the  too  diffident  Prussians  by  assuring  them 
that  they  "are  by  their  character  more  reasonable 
and  more  free  than  Frenchmen."  ^  But  when  the 
Prussian  reader  discovers  that  in  Treitschke's 
opinion  the  French  are  excessively  unreasonable 
and  quite  incapable  of  freedom,  the  effect  is 
marred.  If,  again,  it  be  needful  to  remind  the  Ger- 
mans of  their  peculiar  sensibility  to  the  beauties  of 
nature,  is  it  necessary  to  emphasise  their  superior- 
ity by  explaining  that  when  resting  in  a  forest  they 
lie  upon  their  backs,  while  the  Latin  races,  less 
happily  endowed,  repose  upon  their  stomachs  ?  ^ 

Inordinate  self-esteem  may  be  a  very  agreeable 
quality.  Those  who  possess  it  are  often  endowed 
with  an  imperturbable  complacency  which  softens 
social  intercourse,  and  is  not  inconsistent  with  some 
kindly  feeling  towards  those  whom  they  deem  to 
be  their  inferiors.  But  it  must  be  acknowledged 
that  with  Treitschke  this  quality  does  not  appear  in 
its  most  agreeable  form.  With  him  it  is  censorious 
and  full  of  suspicion.  Unlike  charity  it  greatly 
vaunteth  itself;  unlike  charity  it  thinketh  all  evil. 
1 1.  66.  ^  I.  206. 


196  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

Rare  indeed  are  the  references  to  other  nations 
which  do  not  hold  them  up  to  hatred  or  contempt. 
America,  France,  Austria,  Spain,  Russia,  Britain 
are  in  turn  required  to  supply  the  sombre  back- 
ground against  which  the  virtues  of  Germany  shine 
forth  with  peculiar  lustre.  The  Dutch,  we  are  told, 
have  "deteriorated  morally  and  physically."  ^ 
Americans  are  mere  money-grabbers.  The  Rus- 
sians are  barbarians.  The  Latin  races  are  degen- 
erate. The  English  have  lost  such  poor  virtues  as 
they  once  possessed;  while  their  "want  of  chivalry" 
shocks  the  "simple  fidelity  of  the  German  nature."  ^ 
Cannot  the  subjects  of  the  Kaiser  realise  "the  sim- 
ple fidelity  of  their  German  nature"  without  being 
reminded  how  forcibly  that  "simple  fidelity"  is  im- 
pressed by  "the  want  of  chivalry  in  the  English 
character"?  We  need  not  quarrel  over  these  opin- 
ions. They  are  made  by  a  German  for  Germans, 
and  doubtless  they  suit  their  market.  But,  when 
Treitschke  allows  his  statements  of  fact  and  his 
moral  judgment  to  be  violently  distorted  by  na- 
tional prejudice,  his  errors  become  more  serious. 

I  do  not  here  refer  to  his  wider  generalisations, 
though  I  often  disagree  with  them.  I  think,  for 
example,  that  he  exaggerates  the  absorption  of  the 
individual  by  the  community  in  the  city  states  of 

1  I.  50.  ^  n.  395. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       197 

antiquity ;  and  his  classification  of  various  forms  of 
government  has  not  much  to  recommend  it.  On 
such  questions,  however,  judgments  may  easily  dif- 
fer. But  what  are  we  to  say  of  the  misstatements 
of  bare  historical  fact  in  which  he  indulges  without 
scruple?  Some  of  these,  no  doubt,  are  mere  slips, 
as,  for  example,  when  he  places  the  activities  of 
Titus  Oates  in  the  reign  of  James  II ;  ^  others  are 
unimportant  exhibitions  of  ignorance,  as  when  he 
assures  his  readers  that  in  England  there  are  no 
Crown  lands ;  ^  others,  again,  are  mere  exercises  of 
the  imagination,  as  when  he  tells  us  that,  "after 
Henry  VIII's  hymeneal  prodigies,  it  was  enacted 
by  Parliament  that  its  assent  was  necessary  to 
the  validity  of  any  Royal  marriage."  ^ 

These  blunders  are  presumably  due  to  want  of 
memory  or  want  of  care.  But  others  are  the  off- 
spring of  invincible  prejudice.  When  he  tells  us 
that  England  "turns  a  deaf  ear  on  principle  to 
generous  ideas,'^*  the  judgment  may  to  an  Eng- 
lishman appear  absurd,  and,  in  the  mouth  of  a 
German,  even  impudent.  Yet  it  must  to  a  certain 
extent  be  a  matter  of  opinion.  Character  cannot 
be  tested  in  retorts  or  weighed  in  balances.  But 
what  excuse  can  there  be  for  such  a  particular  his- 
torical statement  as  that  "England's  first  thought 

*  II.  473.         «  II.  490.         >  II.  165.         ♦  II.  614. 


198  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

in  abolishing  slavery  was  the  destruction  of  colon- 
ial competition?"  ^  There  was  not,  and  there  could 
not  be,  any  possible  competition  between  British 
manufacturers  and  the  producers  of  slave-grown 
sugar.  The  charge  is  not  merely  false,  it  is  foolish. 
Again,  there  is  something  peculiarly  absurd  in 
the  statement  that  "no  sooner  had  the  French 
Revolution  broken  out  than  Pitt  eagerly  began  to 
urge  a  reform  of  the  franchise."  ^  This  is  not 
merely  a  misstatement  of  fact.  It  is  a  misstate- 
ment of  fact  which  shows  an  utter  want  of  compre- 
hension of  English  political  history  at  the  period 
referred  to.  There  is  no  reason  why  even  a  Pro- 
fessor of  Modern  History  at  the  University  of 
Berlin  should  know  the  details  of  Pitt's  abortive 
efforts  at  parliamentary  reform;  but  he  ought  to 
know  enough  of  the  subject  to  prevent  him  mis- 
taking the  whole  significance  of  the  facts  to  which 
he  refers.  Treitschke's  blunder  is  not  simply  one 
of  chronology;  it  shows  complete  misapprehension 
of  the  true  relations  between  the  French  Revolu- 
tion and  English  constitutional  development.  So 
far  from  the  outbreak  of  the  French  Revolution 
having  inspired  Pitt  to  attempt  parliamentary  re- 
form, it  put  a  sudden  and  violent  stop  to  a  repeti- 
tion of  the  efforts  he  had  already  made.    In  other 

»I.  162.  UI.  157. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       199 

countries  the  spirit  of  the  French  Revolution  may- 
have  stimulated  political  development.  In  Britain 
its  excesses  killed  political  development  for  a 
generation. 

One  more  example  of  Treitschke*s  extraordinary- 
carelessness  I  will  give,  because  it  illustrates  his 
shortcomings  as  a  student  of  comparative  politics. 
He  is  drawing  a  parallel  between  the  German  and 
the  British  methods  of  settling  the  relations  be- 
tween executive  authority  and  the  rights  of  indi- 
vidual citizens.  He  acknowledges  that  in  Germany 
magistrates  and  police  possess  powers  far  in  excess 
of  those  possessed  by  the  corresponding  authorities 
in  Britain;  he  acknowledges  that  these  powers  may- 
be abused.  But  this,  he  argues,  is  the  lesser  of  two 
evils.  The  British  system  would,  in  his  judgment, 
be  quite  unworkable  if  it  could  not  be  immediately 
suspended  in  case  of  emergency.  England,  he  tells 
his  hearers,  is  continually  proclaiming  martial  law ; 
according  to  him  no  year  passes  without  the  Riot 
Act  being  read  ^  ;  and  when  the  Riot  Act  is  read 
he  supposes  the  whole  machinery  of  ordinary  law 
to  be  put  out  of  gear.  This,  it  need  hardly  be  ob- 
served, is  nonsense  from  beginning  to  end.  Martial 
law  is  never  proclaimed;  many  years  pass  without 
the  Riot  Act  being  read ;  and  when  the  Riot  Act  is 

^I.  157. 


200  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

read,  the  machinery  of  law  is  neither  stopped  nor 
in  the  slightest  degree  interfered  with.  ^ 

Abuse  of  Britain,  Holland,  and  America,  con- 
temptuous references  to  the  Latin  nations, 
extravagant  laudations  of  everything  German 
(except  indeed  the  small  courts  of  Germany),  still 
more  extravagant  laudations  of  everything  Prus- 
sian, and  particularly  the  Prussian  monarchy,  are 
but  the  setting  intended  to  throw  into  high  relief 
his  own  national  ideals.  We  are  all  familiar  with 
the  stock  character  in  fiction  of  the  nouveau  riche, 
who  is  at  once  justly  proud  of  having  made  his 
own  fortune,  and  bitterly  contemptuous  of  those 
who  have  inherited  theirs.  They  are,  in  his  eyes, 
weak,  degenerate,  and  incompetent,  unworthy  of 
the  fortunes  which  ancestral  energy,  or  ancestral 
luck,  has  conferred  upon  them.  But  in  the  very 
midst  of  his  envious  indignation,  he  cannot  shake 
off  the  ambition  to  follow  in  their  steps;  he  must 
imitate  those  whom  he  affects  to  despise. 

I  do  not  know  whether  there  is  anything  in  real 
life  corresponding  to  this  fancy  picture;  but  in  the 
commonwealth  of  nations  the  part  is  aptly  played 
by  the  German  Empire  as  Treitschke  saw  it.  Con- 
sider, for  example,  his  views  on  colonisation.    It  is 

*  This  introduction  is  by  no  means  intended  as  a  Review 
of  Treitschke's  lectures,  and  this  list  of  inaccuracies,  drawn 
entirely  from  Treitschke's  references  to  England,  has  no  pre- 
tensions to  be  complete. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       201 

not  easy  to  see  why  colonial  possessions  appeal  so 
strongly  to  his  imagination;  for  he  dislikes  new 
countries  almost  more  than  he  dislikes  every  old 
country  except  Germany.  The  notion,  for  exam- 
ple, that  the  culture  of  the  new  world  can  ever  rival 
the  culture  of  the  old  seems  to  him  absurd.  He 
observes,  though  not  in  these  lectures,  that  a  Ger- 
man who  goes  to  the  United  States  is  "lost  to  civil- 
isation"— an  amiable  sentiment  which  seems  hardly 
consistent  with  the  passion  for  acquiring  new  coun- 
tries. But  the  real  reason  for  these  ambitions  be- 
comes plain  on  further  examination.  While  Ger- 
many was  in  the  throes  of  the  Thirty  Years'  War, 
or  slowly  recovering  from  its  effects,  England,  the 
detested  rival,  was  laying  the  foundations  of  the 
English-speaking  communities  beyond  the  seas; 
and  while  Frederick  the  Great  was  robbing  his 
neighbours,  and  his  successors  were  struggling  with 
the  forces  let  loose  by  the  French  Revolution,  the 
hold  of  English-speaking  peoples  upon  regions 
outside  Europe  increased  and  strengthened. 

This  was  quite  enough  for  Treitschke.  What 
Britain  had  must  be  worth  having.  If  there  was 
something  worth  having  and  Germany  had  it  not, 
this  must  be  due  to  the  bad  luck  which  sometimes 
pursues  even  the  most  deserving.  If  Germany  had 
it  not  and  England  had  it,  this  must  be  due  to  the 
good  luck  which  sometimes  befalls  even  the  most 


202  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

incompetent.  But  such  inequalities  are  not  to  be 
tolerated.  They  must  be  redressed,  if  need  be  by 
force.  The  "outcome"  (he  tells  us)  "of  our  next 
successful  war  must  be  the  acquisition  of  colonies 
by  any  possible  means."  ^ 

It  would  seem,  however,  that  Treitschke  was 
dimly  aware  that  even  to  a  German  audience  such 
a  doctrine  might  seem  a  trifle  cynical.  He  there- 
fore advances  a  subtler  motive  for  these  colonial 
ambitions.  Germany,  he  tells  us,  should  bear  a 
part  in  the  improvement  of  inferior  races.  She 
should  become  a  pioneer  of  civilisation  in  savage 
lands.  To  outside  observers,  indeed,  it  does  not 
appear  that  either  the  practice  of  his  countrymen, 
or  his  own  theories,  suggest  that  Germany  has  any 
particular  qualifications  for  this  missionary  enter- 
prise. What  is  likely  to  be  the  fate  of  coloured 
races  under  German  domination,  when  men  like 
Treitschke  frankly  avow  that  "in  Livonia  and  Kur- 
land  there  is  no  other  course  open  to  us  (the  Ger- 
mans) but  to  keep  the  subject  races  in  as  uncivi- 
lised a  condition  as  possible,  and  thus  prevent  them 
becoming  a  danger  to  the  handful  of  their  con- 
querors." ^ 

Here  we  come  back  to  the  fundamental  thought 
of  Treitschke — the  State  as  Will  to  Power,  and  to 
his  patriotic  corollary  that  a  Prussianised  Ger- 

U.   119.  ^I.   122. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       203 

many  under  a  Hohenzollern  dynasty  should  enable 
that  thought  to  be  realised.  In  supporting  this 
view  there  is  no  extravagance,  historical,  or  moral, 
from  which  he  shrinks.  He  tells  us,  for  example, 
that  Frederick  the  Great  was  the  "greatest  King 
who  ever  reigned  on^  earth."  *  He  ajccordingly 
finds  in  him  the  most  unexpected  virtues.  Freder- 
ick's dominating  motive  towards  the  end  of  his  life 
was,  it  seems,  "the  desire  to  execute  ideal  justice."  ^ 
A  noble  desire  truly;  but  surely  not  one  which 
should  expect  to  find  much  satisfaction  in  the  par- 
tition of  Poland.  Do  you  ask  the  reason  for  this 
extravagance  of  laudation?  The  answer  is  that 
Frederick  was  the  greatest  of  the  Hohenzollerns, 
that  the  Hohenzollerns  created  the  Prussian  State 
and  the  Prussian  Army,  that  the  Prussian  State 
and  the  Prussian  Army  created  Germany.  Treit- 
schke  positively  gloats  over  Prussian  supremacy. 
"The  will  of  the  German  Empire,"  he  observes, 
"must  in  the  last  resort  be  the  will  of  Prussia."  ^ 
All  small  states  are  ridiculous,  but  the  most  ridi- 
culous of  small  states  are  the  Kingdoms  of  Ba- 
varia, Saxony,  and  Wiirtemberg.  "The  German 
army,  not  the  German  parliament,  is  in  Germany 
the  real  and  effective  bond  of  national  union."  * 
And  the  German  army  is  a  Prussian  creation. 
He  does  not,  of  course,  pretend  that  a  Hohen- 

^  II.    68.  2  II      gg  3  II      375  4  II      gQQ 


204  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

zollem  can  do  no  wrong.  He  goes  the  length,  in- 
deed, of  accusing  one  of  them,  Frederick  William 
IV,  of  "deadly  crime."  ^  And  what  was  this  deadly 
crime?  It  was  that  after  sending  in  troops  to  as- 
sist the  Kings  of  Bavaria  and  Saxony  to  restore 
order,  he  withdrew  them  without  destroying  the 
independence  of  the  states  he  had  gone  to  protect. 
He  behaved  like  a  gentleman,  but  he  sinned  against 
the  law  of  force. 

But  in  spite  of  this  lapse  from  patriotic  virtue, 
and  notwithstanding  that  it  is  difficult  to  say  much 
in  favour  of  any  of  Frederick  the  Great's  success- 
ors until  we  come  to  William  I,  Treitschke  holds 
firmly  to  the  belief  that  the  Prussian  monarchy  is 
a  thing  apart,  and  that  Hohenzollem  royalty  is  not 
as  other  royalties.  Sometimes,  indeed,  this  senti- 
ment shows  itself  in  a  somewhat  ludicrous  fashion. 
For  example,  Treitschke,  in  the  course  of  these 
lectures,  vigorously  defends  the  use  of  classical 
studies  in  the  education  of  youth.  There  is  no  way, 
according  to  him,  in  which  intellect  and  taste  can 
be  more  successfully  developed  than  by  a  thorough 
study  of  Greek  and  Latin.^  So  far,  so  good.  But 
a  little  further  on  the  lecturer  has  to  deal — not  with 
the  education  of  ordinary  mankind,  but — with  that 
of  a  German  prince,  and  we  find  to  our  surprise 
that  in  the  case  of  a  German  prince  a  classical  edu- 
1  I.  95.  *  I.  375. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       205 

cation  has  no  merits.  He  must  learn  French  and 
English.  Why  should  he  do  more?  "Why  on 
earth  should  he  be  bothered  with  Latin,  let  alone 
Greek?"  ^  We  rub  our  eyes  and  ask  what  this 
outburst  can  mean.  Are  "intellect  and  taste"  of 
no  value  to  a  German  prince?  Or  is  a  German 
prince  privileged  by  the  grace  of  God  to  acquire 
them  without  education,  or  by  an  education  inap- 
plicable to  the  common  herd?  We  may  be  sure 
that  none  of  these  alternatives  represent  Treit- 
schke's  considered  views.  I  hazard  another  guess. 
I  suggest  that  the  lecturer  must  have  known  some 
young  HohenzoUern  prince  well  acquainted  with 
French  and  English,  but  quite  innocent  of  Latin 
and  Greek! 

From  these  brief  criticisms  the  reader  will  be 
able  to  form  some  conjecture  as  to  what  he  may 
expect  to  find  in  the  following  pages.  He  will  find 
many  acute  observations  forcibly  expressed,  and 
presumably  accurate,  upon  German  history,  con- 
temporary and  recent.  He  will  find  many  obser- 
vations forcibly  expressed,  but  most  certainly  in- 
accurate, upon  foreign  history,  contemporary  and 
recent.  He  will  throughout  find  himself  in  the 
presence  of  a  vigorous  personality,  with  clear-cut 
views  about  the  future  of  his  country  and  the  meth- 
ods whereby  they  are  to  be  realised,  but  he  will  not 

MI.  72. 


206  A  GERMAN'S  VIEW  OF 

find  breadth  of  view,  generous  sympathies,  or  sys- 
tematic thought.  In  Treitschke  there  is  nothing 
profound,  and  his  political  speculations  are  held 
together  not  so  much  by  consistent  thought  as  by 
the  binding  power  of  one  ruling  passion. 

The  result  is  curious  and  interesting.  Treitschke 
was  a  man  of  wide,  although  not  apparently 
of  very  accurate,  knowledge.  Fragments  of 
Christianity,  of  Ethics,  of  Liberalism,  are  casually 
embedded  in  the  concrete  blocks  out  of  which  he 
has  built  his  political  system;  but  they  are  foreign 
bodies  which  do  nothing  to  strengthen  the  struc- 
ture. Power  based  on  war  is  his  ideal,  and  the 
verdict  of  war  not  only  must  be  accepted,  but  ought 
to  be  accepted.  The  sentimentalist  may  regret 
that  Athens  fell  before  Sparta,  that  Florence 
dwindled  before  Venice,  but  the  wise  man  knows 
better.  Art  and  imagination  do  not  contribute  to 
Power,  and  it  is  only  Power  that  counts.  On  it 
everything  is  based,  by  it  everything  is  justified. 
It  even  supplies  a  short  cut  to  conclusions  which 
reason  may  hesitate  to  adopt.  It  required,  as 
Treitschke  observes,  the  battlefields  of  Bohemia 
and  the  Main  to  "convince"  the  German  people 
that  Prussia  should  control  their  destinies.^ 

It  is  not  surprising  that  a  man  who  held  these 
views  should  regard  with  something  like  disgust 

^  I.  66. 


WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR       207 

and  dismay  the  attempts  of  well-meaning  persons 
to  bring  peace  on  earth.  The  whole  tribe  of  paci- 
fists who  would  substitute  arbitration  for  war  fill 
him  with  loathing.  Like  them  he  has  his  ideals, 
but  they  are  of  a  very  different  order.  His  Utopia 
appears  to  be  a  world  in  which  all  small  states  have 
been  destroyed,  and  in  which  the  large  states  are  all 
either  fighting  or  preparing  for  battle.  "War," 
he  says,  "will  endure  to  the  end  of  history.  The 
laws  of  human  thought  and  of  human  nature  for- 
bid any  alternative,  neither  is  one  to  be  wished 
for."  ' 

Deeply  as  he  despised  those  who,  in  his  own 
phrase,  "rave  about  everlasting  peace,*'  there  are 
transient  moments  in  which  he  almost  seems  to  fear 
them.  Even  the  most  robust  faith  will  sometimes 
weaken;  for  a  moment  even  Treitschke  trembles 
at  the  thought  that  men  may  some  day  cease  to  cut 
each  other's  throats.  "What,"  he  pathetically  asks, 
"if  war  should  really  disappear,  and  with  it  all 
movement  and  all  growth?"  ^  What  if  mankind 
should  deliberately  deprive  itself  of  the  "one 
remedy  for  an  ailing  civilisation"  ? 

The  thought  is  terrible,  but,  supported  by  re- 
ligion, Treitschke's  confidence  remains  unmoved. 
"Are  not  the  great  strides  civilisation  makes 
against  barbarism  and  unreason  only  made  actual 
U.  65.  *I.  68. 


208       WORLD-POLICY  AND  WAR 

by  the  sword?"  ^  Does  not  the  Bible  say  that 
"greater  love  hath  no  man  than  to  lay  down  his  life 
for  his  friend"  ?  Are  we  then  going  to  be  seduced 
by  the  "blind  worshippers  of  an  eternal  peace"  ?" 
No.  Let  us  reject  these  unworthy  thoughts:  being 
well  assured  that  "the  God  above  us  will  see  to  it 
that  war  shall  return  again,  a  terrible  medicine 
for  mankind  diseased."  * 

Since  these  lectures  were  delivered  the  longed- 
for  medicine  has  been  supplied  to  us  in  overflowing 
measure.  Even  the  physician  himself  could  hardly 
ask  for  more.  Yet  were  he  here  to  watch  the  ap- 
plication of  his  favourite  remedy,  what  would  he 
say  of  the  patient? 

^I.  65.  ^1.  65.  »I.  69. 


PART  TWO:    POLITICAL 
VIII:  THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 


VIII 

THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS  ^ 

The  phrase  "freedom  of  the  seas"  is,  naturally, 
attractive  to  British  and  American  ears.  For  the 
extension  of  freedom  into  all  departments  of  life 
and  over  the  whole  civilised  world  has  been  one  of 
the  chief  aspirations  of  the  English-speaking  peo- 
ples, and  efforts  towards  that  end  have  formed  no 
small  part  of  their  contribution  to  civilisation.  But 
"freedom"  is  a  word  of  many  meanings;  and  we 
shall  do  well  to  consider  in  what  meaning  the  Ger- 
mans use  it  when  they  ask  for  it,  not  (it  may  be 
safely  said)  because  they  love  freedom,  but  be- 
cause they  hate  Britain. 

About  the  "freedom  of  the  seas,"  in  one  sense, 
we  are  all  agreed.  England  and  Holland  fought 
for  it  in  times  gone  by;  and  it  is,  indeed,  to  their 
success  that  the  United  States  may  be  said,  without 
exaggeration,  to  owe  its  very  existence. 

For  if,  three  hundred  years  ago,  the  maritime 
claims  of  Spain  and  Portugal  had  been  admitted, 
whatever  else  North  America  might  have  been  it 

*  Interview  given  to  the  American  Press,  May  191 6. 

211 


212    THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 

would  not  have  been  English-speaking.  It  neither 
would  have  spoken  the  language,  nor  obeyed 
the  laws,  nor  enjoyed  the  institutions,  which,  in  the 
last  analysis,  are  of  British  origin. 

But  the  "freedom  of  the  seas"  desired  by  the 
modern  German  is  a  very  different  thing  from  the 
freedom  for  which  our  forefathers  fought  in  days 
of  old.  How,  indeed,  can  it  be  otherwise?  The 
most  simple-minded  must  feel  suspicious  when  they 
find  that  these  missionaries  of  maritime  freedom 
are  the  very  same  persons  who  preach  and  who 
practise  upon  land  the  extremest  doctrines  of 
military  absolutism. 

Ever  since  the  genius  of  Bismarck  created  the 
German  Empire  by  Prussian  rifles,  welding  the 
German  people  into  a  great  unity  by  military 
means,  on  a  military  basis,  German  ambitions  have 
been  a  cause  of  unrest  to  the  entire  world.  Com- 
mercial and  political  domination,  depending  upon 
a  gigantic  army  autocratically  governed,  has  been 
and  is  the  German  ideal. 

If,  then,  Germany  wants  what  she  calls  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas,  it  is  solely  as  a  means  whereby 
this  ideal  may  receive  world-wide  extension.  The 
power  of  Napoleon  never  extended  beyond  the 
coast  line  of  Europe.  Further  progress  was  barred 
by  the  British  fleets  and  by  them  alone.  Ger- 
many is  determined  to  endure  no  such  limitations; 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS  213 

and  if  she  cannot  defeat  her  enemies  at  sea,  at  least 
she  expects  to  paralyse  their  sea-power. 

There  is  a  characteristic  simplicity  in  the  meth- 
ods by  which  she  sets  about  attaining  this  object. 
She  poses  as  a  reformer  of  international  law, 
though  international  law  has  never  bound  her  for 
an  hour.  She  objects  to  "economic  pressure,'* 
when  it  is  exercised  by  a  superior  fleet,  though  she 
sets  no  limit  to  the  brutal  completeness  with  which 
economic  pressure  may  be  imposed  by  a  victorious 
army.  She  sighs  over  the  suffering  which  war  im- 
poses upon  peaceful  commerce,  though  her  own 
methods  of  dealing  with  peaceful  commerce  would 
have  wrung  the  conscience  of  Captain  Kidd.  She 
denounces  the  maritime  methods  of  the  Allies, 
though  in  her  efforts  to  defeat  them  she  is  deterred 
neither  by  the  rules  of  war,  nor  the  appeal  of  hu- 
manity, nor  the  rights  of  neutrals. 

It  must  be  admitted,  therefore,  that  it  is  not  the 
cause  of  peace,  or  of  liberty  which  preoccupies  her 
when  in  the  name  of  freedom  she  urges  fundamen- 
tal changes  in  maritime  practice.  Her  manifest  ob- 
ject is  to  shatter  an  obstacle  which  hampers  her 
ambitions,  as  more  than  a  hundred  years  ago  it 
hampered  the  ambitions  of  the  masterful  genius 
who  was  then  her  oppressor,  as  he  is  her  model  now. 

But  not  along  this  path  are  peace  and  liberty  to 
be  obtained.     Is  it  not  plain  that  to  paralyse  naval 


214    THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 

power  and  leave  military  power  uncontrolled  would 
be  the  worst  injury  which  the  misuse  of  interna- 
tional law  could  inflict  upon  mankind? 

In  the  first  place  it  would  do  nothing  to  relieve 
the  world  from  the  burden  of  armaments.  Fleets 
would  still  be  indispensable.  But  their  importance, 
though  not  their  cost,  would  diminish.  Their  of- 
fensive power  would  be  relatively  crippled.  They 
could  no  longer  be  used  to  exercise  pressure  upon 
an  enemy  except  in  conjunction  with  an  army. 
Thus  the  nations  whose  power  depended  on  their 
navies  would  be  partially  disarmed,  while  the  na- 
tions whose  power  depended  on  their  armies  would 
be  stronger  than  before.  So  that  aggressive  pow- 
ers like  Germany  and  Austria  would  become  more 
formidable  than  ever  in  attack,  while  the  unaggres- 
sive powers  like  America  or  England  would  be 
weaker  even  in  defence. 

Imagine,  for  example,  that  Germany,  in  her 
desire  to  appropriate  some  Germanised  portions  of 
South  America,  came  into  conflict  with  the  United 
States  pSrer  the  Monroe  doctrine.  The  United 
States,  with  her  small  voluntary  army,  and  with 
her  navy  bound  by  the  new  doctrine,  could  aim  no 
blow  at  her  enemy  until  she  herself  had  created  a 
large  army  and  become  for  the  time  being  a  mili- 
tary community.    Her  sea-power  would  be  useless 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS   215 

save  for  passive  defence.  Her  land-power  would 
not  exist. 

But  more  than  this  might  happen,  and  worse. 
Let  us  suppose  the  desired  change  to  have  been  ef- 
fected. Let  us  suppose  that  the  maritime  nations, 
accepting  the  new  situation,  thought  themselves 
relieved  from  all  necessity  of  protecting  their  sea- 
borne commerce,  and  arranged  their  programmes 
of  naval  shipbuilding  accordingly.  For  some  time 
war,  when  it  occurred,  would  probably  proceed  on 
legal  lines.  Commerce,  even  hostile  commerce, 
destroyed  on  land,  would  be  safe  at  sea.  But  a 
change  might  happen.  Some  unforeseen  circum- 
stance might  make  the  German  General  Staff 
think  it  to  be  to  the  interest  of  its  nation  to  cast  to 
the  winds  the  "freedom  of  the  seas"  and,  in  defiance 
of  the  new  law,  to  destroy  the  trade  of  its  enemies. 

No  one,  I  suppose,  is  likely  to  suggest  after  our 
experience  in  this  war,  after  reading  German  his- 
tories and  German  theories  of  politics,  that  Ger- 
many would  be  prevented  from  taking  such  a  step 
by  the  mere  fact  that  it  was  a  breach  of  interna- 
tional treaties  to  which  she  was  a  party.  She 
would  never  hesitate — and  the  only  result  of  the 
cession  by  the  pacific  powers  of  their  maritime 
rights  would  be  that  the  military  powers  would 
seize  the  weapon  for  their  own  purpose  and  turn 
it  against  those  who  had  too  hastily  abandoned  it. 


216    THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 

So  weak  is  international  law  unaided  by  interna- 
tional authority! 

While  this  state  of  things  is  permitted  to  endure, 
drastic  changes  in  the  law  of  nations  may  well  do 
more  harm  than  good;  for  if  the  new  rules  should 
involve  serious  limitations  of  belligerent  rights, 
they  would  be  broken  as  soon  as  it  suited  the  inter- 
ests of  the  aggressor ;  and  his  victim  would  be  help- 
less because  unprepared.  Nothing  could  be  more 
disastrous.  Law  that  has  no  effective  sanction  is 
commonly  useless;  law  which  influences  only  the 
law-abiding  may  sometimes  be  dangerous.  For  if 
unsupported  by  powers  it  hampers  everybody  but 
the  criminal. 

Here  we  come  face  to  face  with  the  great  prob- 
lem which  lies  behind  all  the  changing  aspects  of 
this  tremendous  war.  When  it  is  brought  to  an 
end,  how  is  civilised  mankind  so  to  reorganise  it- 
self that  similar  catastrophies  shall  not  be  permit- 
ted to  recur? 

The  problem  is  insistent,  though  its  full  solution 
may  be  beyond  our  powers  at  this  stage  of  devel- 
opment. 

But,  surely,  even  now  it  is  fairly  clear  that  if 
substantial  progress  is  to  be  made  toward  securing 
the  peace  of  the  world  and  a  free  development  of 
its  constituent  nations,  the  United  States  of 
America  and  the  British  Empire  should  explicitly 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS  217 

recognise,  what  all  instinctively  know,  that  on  these 
great  subjects  they  share  a  common  ideal. 

I  am  well  aware  that  in  even  hinting  at  the  pos- 
sibility of  co-operation  between  these  two  coun- 
tries I  am  treading  on  delicate  ground.  The  fact 
that  American  independence  was  wrested  by  force 
from  Great  Britain  colours  the  whole  view  which 
some  Americans  take  of  the  "natural"  relations 
between  the  two  communities.  Others  are  impa- 
tient of  anything  which  they  regard  as  a  senti- 
mental appeal  of  community  of  race ;  holding,  truly 
enough,  that  in  respect  of  important  sections  of  the 
American  people  this  community  of  race  does  not, 
in  fact,  exist.  Others  again  object  to  any  argu- 
ment based  on  a  similarity  of  laws  and  institutions, 
thinking,  quite  wrongly,  that  such  considerations 
beHttle  the  greatness  of  America's  contribution  to 
the  political  development  of  the  modern  world. 

Rightly  understood,  however,  what  I  have  to 
say  is  quite  independent  of  individual  views  on  any 
of  these  subjects.  It  is  based  on  the  unquestioned 
fact  that  the  growth  of  British  laws,  British  forms 
of  Government,  British  literature  and  modes  of 
thought  was  the  slow  work  of  centuries;  that 
among  the  co-heirs  of  these  age-long  labours  were 
the  great  men  who  founded  the  United  States ;  and 
that  the  two  branches  of  the  English-speaking  peo- 
ples,  after   their   political   separation,   developed 


218    THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 

along  parallel  lines.  So  it  has  come  about  that 
whether  they  be  friendly  or  quarrelsome,  whether 
they  rejoice  in  their  agreements  or  cultivate  their 
differences,  they  can  no  more  get  rid  of  a  certain 
fundamental  similarity  of  outlook  than  children 
born  of  the  same  parents  and  brought  up  in  the 
same  home.  Whether,  therefore,  you  study  po- 
litical thought  in  Great  Britain  or  America,  in 
Canada  or  in  Australia,  you  will  find  it  presents  the 
sharpest  and  most  irreconcilable  contrast  to  polit- 
ical thought  in  the  Prussian  Kingdom,  or  in  that 
German  Empire  into  which,  with  no  modification 
of  aims  or  spirit,  the  Prussian  Kingdom  has  de- 
veloped. Holding,  as  I  do,  that  this  war  is  essen- 
tially a  struggle  between  these  two  ideals  of  an- 
cient growth,  I  cannot  doubt  that  in  the  result  of 
that  struggle  America  is  no  less  concerned  than  the 
British  Empire. 

Now,  if  this  statement,  wKich  represents  the 
most  unchanging  element  in  my  political  creed, 
has  in  it  any  element  of  truth,  how  does  it  bear 
upon  the  narrower  issues  upon  which  I  dwelt  in  the 
earlier  portions  of  this  interview?  In  other  words, 
what  are  the  practical  conclusions  to  be  drawn 
from  it? 

My  own  conclusions  are  these:  If  in  our  time 
any  substantial  effort  is  to  be  made  toward  ensur- 
ing the  permanent  triumph  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 


THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS   219 

ideal,  the  great  communities  which  accept  it  must 
work  together.  And  in  working  together  ^hey 
must  bear  in  mind  that  law  is  not  enough.  Behind 
law  there  must  be  power.  It  is  good  that  arbitra- 
tion should  be  encouraged.  It  is  good  that  the  ac- 
cepted practices  of  warfare  should  become  ever 
more  humane.  It  is  good  that  before  peace  is 
broken  itie  would-be  belligerents  should  be  com- 
pelled to  discuss  their  differences  in  some  congress 
of  the  nations.  It  is  good  that  the  security  of  the 
smaller  states  should  be  fenced  round  with  peculiar 
care.  But  all  the  precautions  are  mere  scraps  of 
paper  unless  they  can  be  enforced.  We  delude  our- 
selves if  we  think  we  are  doing  God  service  merely 
by  passing  good  resolutions.  What  is  needed  now, 
and  will  be  needed  so  long  as  militarism  is  uncon- 
quered,  is  the  machinery  for  enforcing  them;  and 
the  contrivance  of  such  a  machinery  will  tax  to  its 
utmost  the  statesmanship  of  the  world. 

I  have  no  contribution  to  make  to  the  solution 
of  the  problem.  Yet  this  much  seems  clear.  If 
there  is  to  be  any  effective  sanction  behind  the  de- 
sire of  the  English-speaking  peoples  to  preserve 
the  world's  peace  and  the  free  development  of  the 
nations,  that  sanction  must  consist  largely  in  the 
potential  use  of  sea-power.  So  it  has  been  in  the 
past,  so  it  will  be  in  the  future.  For  two  genera- 
tions and  more  after  the  last  great  war  Britain  was 


220    THE  FREEDOM  OF  THE  SEAS 

without  a  rival  on  the  sea;  and  it  was  during  this 
period  that  Belgium  became  a  state,  that  Greece 
secured  her  independence,  that  the  unity  of  Italy 
was  achieved,  that  the  South  American  republics 
were  established,  that  the  Monroe  doctrine  came 
into  being. 

To  me,  therefore,  it  seems  that  the  lesson  to  be 
drawn  from  history  by  those  who  love  peace,  free- 
dom, and  security,  is  not  that  Britain  and  America 
should  be  deprived,  or  should  deprive  themselves, 
of  the  maritime  powers  they  now  possess,  but  that, 
if  possible,  those  powers  should  be  organised  in  the 
interests  of  an  ideal  common  to  the  two  states,  an 
ideal  upon  whose  progressive  realisation  the  hap- 
piness and  peace  of  the  world  must,  as  I  read  the 
future,  so  largely  depend. 


PART  TWO:    POLITICAL 

IX:   THE    FOUNDATIONS    OF   A   DUR- 
ABLE PEACE 


IX 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  A  DURABLE 
PEACE  ^ 

Foreign  Office, 
January  13,  1917. 

Sir, 

In  sending  you  a  translation  of  the  Allied 
note,  I  desire  to  make  the  following  observations 
which  you  should  bring  to  the  notice  of  the  United 
States  Government: 

I  gather  from  the  general  tenor  of  the  Presi- 
dent's note  that,  while  he  is  animated  by  an  intense 
desire  that  peace  should  come  soon,  and  that  when 
it  comes  it  should  be  lasting,  he  does  not,  for  the 
moment  at  least,  concern  himself  with  the  terms 
on  which  it  should  be  arranged.  His  Majesty's 
Government  entirely  share  the  President's  ideals; 
but  they  feel  strongly  that  the  durability  of  the 
peace  must  largely  depend  on  its  character,  and 
that  no  stable  system  of  international  relations  can 
be  built  on  foundations  which  are  essentially  and 
hopelessly  defective. 

^Dispatch  to  His  Majesty's  Ambassador  at  Washington  re- 
specting the  Allied  Note  of  January  10,  1917. 

223 


224  A  DURABLE  PEACE 

This  becomes  clearly  apparent  if  we  consider  the 
main  conditions  which  rendered  possible  the 
calamities  from  which  the  world  is  now  suffering. 
These  were  the  existence  of  a  Great  Power  con- 
sumed with  the  lust  of  domination,  in  the  midst  of 
a  community  of  nations  ill-prepared  for  defence, 
plentifully  supplied  indeed  with  international  laws, 
but  with  no  machinery  for  enforcing  them,  and 
weakened  by  the  fact  that  neither  the  boundaries 
of  the  various  states  nor  their  internal  constitution 
harmonised  with  the  aspirations  of  their  constitu- 
ent races,  or  secured  to  them  just  and  equal 
treatment. 

That  this  last  evil  would  be  greatly  mitigated  if 
the  Allies  secured  the  changes  in  the  map  of  Eu- 
rope outlined  in  their  joint  note  is  manifest,  and  I 
need  not  labour  the  point. 

It  has  been  argued,  indeed,  that  the  expulsion  of 
the  Turks  from  Europe  forms  no  proper  or  logical 
part  of  this  general  scheme.  The  maintenance  of 
the  Turkish  Empire  was,  during  many  genera- 
tions, regarded  by  statesman  of  world-wide  author- 
ity as  essential  to  the  maintenance  of  European 
peace.  Why,  it  is  asked,  should  the  cause  of  peace 
be  now  associated  with  a  complete  reversal  of  this 
traditional  policy? 

The  answer  is  that  circumstances  have  com- 
pletely changed.     It  is  unnecessary  to  consider 


A  DURABLE  PEACE  225 

now  whether  the  creation  of  a  reformed  Turkey 
mediating  between  hostile  races  in  the  near  East 
was  a  scheme  which,  had  the  Sultan  been  sincere 
and  the  Powers  united,  could  ever  have  been 
realised.  It  certainly  cannot  be  realised  now.  The 
Turkey  of  "Union  and  Progress"  is  at  least  as 
barbarous  and  is  far  more  aggressive  than  the 
Turkey  of  Sultan  Abdul  Hamid.  In  the  hands  of 
Germany  it  has  ceased  even  in  appearance  to  be  a 
bulwark  of  peace,  and  is  openly  used  as  an  in- 
strument of  conquest.  Under  German  officers, 
Turkish  soldiers  are  now  fighting  in  lands  from 
which  they  had  long  been  expelled,  and  a  Turkish 
Government,  controlled,  subsidised,  and  supported 
by  Germany,  has  been  guilty  of  massacres  in 
Armenia  and  Syria  more  horrible  than  any  re- 
corded in  the  history  even  of  those  unhappy  coun- 
tries. Evidently  the  interests  of  peace  and  the 
claims  of  nationality  alike  require  that  Turkish 
rule  over  alien  races  shall,  if  possible,  be  brought 
to  an  end;  and  we  may  hope  that  the  expulsion  of 
Turkey  from  Europe  will  contribute  as  much  to 
the  cause  of  peace  as  the  restoration  of  Alsace- 
Lorraine  to  France,  of  Italia  Irredenta  to  Italy, 
or  any  of  the  other  territorial  changes  indicated  in 
the  Allied  note. 

Evidently,  however,  such  territorial  rearrange- 
ments, though  they  may  diminish  the  occasions  of 


226  A  DURABLE  PEACE 

war,  provide  no  sufficient  security  against  its 
recurrence.  If  Germany,  or  rather  those  in  Ger- 
many who  mould  its  opinions  and  control  its  des- 
tinies, again  set  out  to  dominate  the  world,  they 
may  find  that  by  the  new  order  of  things  the 
adventure  is  made  more  difficult,  but  hardly  that  it 
is  made  impossible.  They  may  still  have  ready  to 
their  hand  a  political  system  organised  through 
and  through  on  a  military  basis;  they  may  still 
accumulate  vast  stores  of  military  equipment ;  they 
may  still  perfect  their  methods  of  attack,  so  that 
their  more  pacific  neighbours  will  be  struck  down 
before  they  can  prepare  themselves  for  defence. 
If  so,  Europe  when  the  war  is  over  will  be  far 
poorer  in  men,  in  money,  and  in  mutual  good- 
will than  it  was  when  the  war  began,  but  it  will 
not  be  safer;  and  the  hopes  for  the  future  of  the 
world  entertained  by  the  President  will  be  as  far 
as  ever  from  fulfilment. 

There  are  those  who  think  that  for  this  disease 
international  treaties  and  international  laws  may 
provide  a  sufficient  cure.  But  such  persons  have 
ill-learned  the  lessons  so  clearly  taught  by  recent 
history.  While  other  nations,  notably  the  United 
States  of  America  and  Britain,  were  striving  by 
treaties  of  arbitration  to  make  sure  that  no  chance 
quarrel  should  mar  the  peace  they  desired  to  make 
perpetual,  Germany  stood  aloof.     Her  historians 


A  DURABLE  PEACE  227 

and  philosophers  preached  the  splendours  of  war; 
power  was  proclaimed  as  the  true  end  of  the  State ; 
the  General  Staff  forged  with  untiring  industry 
the  weapons  by  which,  at  the  appointed  moment, 
power  might  be  achieved.  These  facts  proved 
clearly  enough  that  treaty  arrangements  for  main- 
taining peace  were  not  likely  to  find  much  favour 
at  Berlin;  they  did  not  prove  that  such  treaties, 
once  made,  could  be  utterly  ineffectual.  This  be- 
came evident  only  when  war  had  broken  out; 
though  the  demonstration,  when  it  came,  was  over- 
whelming. So  long  as  Germany  remains  the 
Germany  which,  without  a  shadow  of  justification, 
overran  and  barbarously  ill-treated  a  country  it 
was  pledged  to  defend,  no  state  can  regard  its 
rights  as  secure  if  they  have  no  better  protection 
than  a  solemn  treaty. 

The  case  is  made  worse  by  the  reflection  that 
these  methods  of  calculated  brutality  were  de- 
signed by  the  Central  Powers  not  merely  to  crush 
to  the  dust  those  with  whom  they  were  at  war, 
but  to  intimidate  those  with  whom  they  were  still 
at  peace.  Belgium  was  not  only  a  victim:  it  was 
an  example.  Neutrals  were  intended  to  note  the 
outrages  which  accompanied  its  conquest,  the  reign 
of  terror  which  followed  on  its  occupation,  the 
deportation  of  a  portion  of  its  population,  the 
cruel    oppression    of    the    remainder.     And    lest 


228  A  DURABLE  PEACE 

nations  happily  protected,  either  by  British  fleets 
or  by  their  own,  from  German  armies,  should  sup- 
pose themselves  safe  from  German  methods,  the 
submarine  has  (within  its  limits)  assiduously  imi- 
tated the  barbaric  practices  of  the  sister  service. 
The  War  Staffs  of  the  Central  Powers  are  well 
content  to  horrify  the  world  if  at  the  same  time 
they  can  terrorise  it. 

If,  then,  the  Central  Powers  succeed  it  will  be 
to  methods  like  these  that  they  will  owe  their  suc- 
cess. How  can  any  reform  of  international  rela- 
tions be  based  on  a  peace  thus  obtained?  Such  a 
peace  would  represent  the  triumph  of  all  the  forces 
which  make  war  certain  and  make  it  brutal.  It 
would  advertise  the  futility  of  all  the  methods  on 
which  civilisation  relies  to  eliminate  the  occasions 
of  international  dispute  and  to  mitigate  their 
ferocity.  Germany  and  Austria  made  the  present 
war  inevitable  by  attacking  the  rights  of  one  small 
state,  and  they  gained  their  initial  triumphs  by 
violating  the  treaty-guarded  territories  of  another. 
Are  small  states  going  to  find  in  them  their  future 
protectors,  or  in  treaties  made  by  them  a  bulwark 
against  aggression?  Terrorism  by  land  and  sea 
will  have  proved  itself  the  instrument  of  victory. 
Are  the  victors  likely  to  abandon  it  on  the  appeal 
of  the  neutrals?  If  existing  treaties  are  no  more 
than  scraps  of  paper,  can  fresh  treaties  help  us? 


A  DURABLE  PEACE  229 

If  the  violation  of  the  most  fundamental  canons 
of  international  law  be  crowned  with  success,  will 
it  not  be  in  vain  that  the  assembled  nations  labour 
to  improve  their  code?  None  will  profit  by  their 
rules  but  the  criminals  who  break  them.  It  is  those 
who  keep  them  that  will  suffer. 

Though,  therefore,  the  people  of  this  country- 
share  to  the  full  the  desire  of  the  President  for 
peace,  they  do  not  believe  that  peace  can  be  dur- 
able if  it  be  not  based  on  the  success  of  the  Allied 
cause.  For  a  durable  peace  can  hardly  be  expected 
unless  three  conditions  are  fulfilled.  The  first  jis 
that  the  existing  causes  of  international  unrest 
should  be  as  far  as  possible  removed  or  weakened. 
The  second  is  that  the  aggressive  aims  and  the 
unscrupulous  methods  of  the  Central  Powers 
should  fall  into  disrepute  among  their  own  peoples. 
The  third  is  that  behind  international  law,  and  be- 
hind all  treaty  arrangements  for  preventing  or 
limiting  hostilities,  some  form  of  international 
sanction  should  be  devised  which  would  give  pause 
to  the  hardiest  aggressor.  These  conditions  may 
be  diflicult  of  fulfilment,  but  we  believe  them  to  be 
in  general  harmony  with  the  President's  ideals, 
and  we  are  confident  that  none  of  them  can  be 
satisfied,  even  imperfectly,  unless  peace  be  secured 
on  the  general  lines  indicated  (so  far  as  Europe  is 
concerned)  in  the  joint  note.    Therefore  it  is  that 


230  A  DURABLE  PEACE 

this  country  has  made,  is  making,  and  is  prepared 
to  make  sacrifices  of  blood  and  treasure  unparal- 
leled in  its  history.  It  bears  these  heavy  burdens 
not  merely  that  it  may  thus  fulfil  its  treaty  obliga- 
tions, nor  yet  that  it  may  secure  a  barren  triumph 
of  one  group  of  nations  over  another.  It  bears 
them  because  it  firmly  believes  that  on  the  success 
of  the  Allies  depend  the  prospects  of  peaceful  civili- 
sation and  of  those  international  reforms  which 
the  best  thinkers  of  the  New  World,  as  of  the  Old, 
dare  to  hope  may  follow  on  the  cessation  of  our 
present  calamities. 

I  am,  with  great  truth  and  respect,  Sir, 
Your  Excellency's  most  obedient 
humble  servant, 

Aethue  James  Balfoue. 


PART  TWO:    POLITICAL 
X:  A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM 


A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM  * 

Whether  it  be  helpful  for  one  who  is  not  a  Jew, 
either  by  race  or  religion,  to  say  even  the  briefest 
word  by  way  of  introduction  to  a  book  on  Zionism 
is,  in  my  own  opinion,  doubtful.  But  my  friend, 
M.  Nahum  Sokolow,  tells  me  that  I  long  ago  gave 
him  reason  to  expect  that,  when  the  time  came,  I 
would  render  him  this  small  measure  of  assistance ; 
and  if  he  attaches  value  to  it,  I  cannot  allow  my 
personal  doubts  as  to  its  value  to  stand  in  his  way. 
The  only  qualification  I  possess  for  this  particu- 
lar task  is  that  I  have  always  been  greatly  inter- 
ested in  the  Jewish  question,  and  that  in  the  early 
years  of  this  century,  when  anti-Semitism  in  East- 
em  Europe  was  in  an  acute  stage,  I  did  my  best 
to  support  a  scheme  devised  by  Mr.  Chamberlain, 
then  Colonial  Secretary,  for  creating  a  Jewish 
settlement  in  East  Africa,  under  the  British  flag. 
There  it  was  hoped  that  Jews  fleeing  from  persecu- 
tion might  found  a  community  where,  in  harmony 

*  Being  the  Introduction  to  The  History  of  Zionism,  1600- 
1918,  by  Nahum  Sokolow. 

233 


234     A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM 

with  their  own  religion,  development  on  traditional 
lines  might  (we  thought)  peacefully  proceed  with- 
out external  interruption,  and  free  from  fears  of 
violence. 

The  scheme  was  certainly  well-intentioned,  and 
had,  I  think,  many  merits.  But  it  had  one  serious 
defect.  It  was  not  Zionism.  It  attempted  to  find 
a  home  for  men  of  Jewish  religion  and  Jewish  race 
in  a  region  far  removed  from  the  country  where 
that  race  was  nurtured  and  that  religion  came  into 
being.  Conversations  I  held  with  Dr.  Weizmann 
in  January  1906  convinced  me  that  history  could 
not  thus  be  ignored,  and  that  if  a  home  was  to  be 
sought  for  the  Jewish  people,  homeless  now  for 
nearly  nineteen  hundred  years,  it  was  only  in 
Palestine  that  it  could  be  found. 

But  why,  it  may  be  asked,  is  local  sentiment  to  be 
more  considered  in  the  case  of  the  Jew  than  (say) 
in  that  of  the  Christian  or  the  Buddhist?  All  his- 
toric religions  rouse  feelings  which  cluster  round 
places  made  memorable  by  the  words  and  deeds, 
the  lives  and  deaths,  of  those  who  brought  them  into 
being.  And  though  without  doubt  these  feelings 
should  always  be  treated  with  respect,  no  one  sug- 
gests that  the  regions  where  these  venerable  sites 
are  to  be  found  should,  of  set  purpose  and  with 
much  anxious  contrivance,  be  colonised  by  the 
spiritual  descendants  of  those  who  originally  made 


A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM     235 

them  famous.  If  the  centuries  have  brought  no 
change  of  ownership  or  occupancy  we  are  well  con- 
tent. But  if  it  be  otherwise,  we  make  no  effort  to 
reverse  the  course  of  history.  None  suggest  that 
we  should  plant  Buddhist  colonies  in  the  plains  of 
India,  or  renew  in  favour  of  Christendom  the 
crusading  adventures  of  our  mediaeval  ancestors. 
Yet,  if  this  be  wisdom  when  we  are  dealing  with 
Buddhism  and  Christianity,  why,  it  may  be  asked, 
is  it  not  also  wisdom  when  we  are  dealing  with 
Judaism  and  the  Jews? 

The  answer  is,  that  the  cases  are  not  parallel. 
The  position  of  the  Jews  is  unique.  For  them  race, 
religion  and  country  are  inter-related,  as  they  are 
inter-related  in  the  case  of  no  other  race,  no  other 
religion,  and  no  other  country  on  earth.  In  no 
other  case  are  the  believers  in  one  of  the  greatest 
religions  of  the  world  to  be  found  (speaking 
broadly)  only  among  the  members  of  a  single  small 
people;  in  the  case  of  no  other  religion  is  its  past 
development  so  intimately  bound  up  with  the  long 
political  history  of  a  petty  territory  wedged  in  be- 
tween states  more  powerful  far  than  it  could  ever 
be;  in  the  case  of  no  other  religion  are  its  aspira- 
tions and  hopes  expressed  in  language  and  imagery 
so  utterly  dependent  for  their  meaning  on  the  con- 
viction that  only  from  this  one  land,  only  through 
this  one  history,  only  by  this  one  people  is  full 


236     A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM 

religious  knowledge  to  be  spread  through  all  the 
world.  By  a  strange  and  most  unhappy  fate  it  is 
this  people  of  all  others  which,  retaining  to  the  full 
its  racial  self -consciousness,  has  been  severed  from 
its  home,  has  wandered  into  all  lands,  and  has  no- 
where been  able  to  create  for  itself  an  organised 
social  commonwealth.  Only  Zionism — so  at  least 
Zionists  believe — can  provide  some  mitigation  of 
this  great  tragedy. 

Doubtless  there  are  difficulties,  doubtless  there 
are  objections — great  difficulties,  very  real  objec- 
tions. And  it  is,  I  suspect,  among  the  Jews  them- 
selves that  these  are  most  acutely  felt.  Yet  no  one 
can  reasonably  doubt  that  if,  as  I  believe,  Zionism 
can  be  developed  into  a  working  scheme,  the  bene- 
fit it  would  bring  to  the  Jewish  people,  especially 
perhaps  to  that  section  of  it  which  most  deserves 
our  pity,  would  be  great  and  lasting.  It  is  not 
merely  that  large  numbers  of  them  would  thus  find 
a  refuge  from  religious  and  social  persecution;  but 
that  they  would  bear  corporate  responsibilities 
and  enjoy  corporate  opportunities  of  a  kind  which, 
from  the  nature  of  the  case,  they  can  never  possess 
as  citizens  of  any  non-Jewish  state.  It  is  charged 
against  them  by  their  critics  that  they  now 
employ  their  great  gifts  to  exploit  for  personal 
ends  a  civilisation  which  they  have  not  created,  in 
communities  they  do  little  to  maintain.    The  accu- 


A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM     237 

sation  thus  formulated  is  manifestly  false.  But  it 
is  no  doubt  true  that  in  large  parts  of  Europe  their 
loyalty  to  the  state  in  which  they  dwell  is  (to  put  it 
mildly)  feeble  compared  with  their  loyalty  to  their 
religion  and  their  race.  How  indeed  could  it  be 
otherwise?  In  none  of  the  regions  of  which  I  speak 
have  they  been  given  the  advantage  of  equal  citi- 
zenship, in  some  they  have  been  given  no  right  of 
citizenship  at  all.  Great  suffering  is  the  inevitable 
result;  but  not  suffering  alone.  Other  evils  follow 
which  aggravate  the  original  mischief.  Constant 
oppression,  with  occasional  outbursts  of  violent 
persecution,  are  apt  either  to  crush  their  victims,  or 
to  develop  in  them  self-protecting  qualities  which 
do  not  always  assume  an  attractive  shape.  The 
Jews  have  never  been  crushed.  Neither  cruelty 
nor  contempt,  neither  unequal  laws  nor  illegal  op- 
pression, have  ever  broken  their  spirit  or  shattered 
their  unconquerable  hopes.  But  it  may  well  be  true 
that,  where  they  have  been  compelled  to  live  among 
their  neighbours  as  if  these  were  their  enemies,  they 
have  often  obtained,  and  sometimes  deserved,  the 
reputation  of  being  undesirable  citizens.  Nor  is 
this  surprising.  If  you  oblige  many  men  to  be 
moneylenders,  some  will  assuredly  be  usurers.  If 
you  treat  an  important  section  of  the  community 
as  outcasts,  they  will  hardly  shine  as  patriots.  Thus 


238     A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM 

does  intolerance  blindly  labour  to  create  the  justi- 
fication for  its  own  excesses. 

.  It  seems  evident  that,  for  these  and  other  reasons, 
Zionism  will  mitigate  the  lot  and  elevate  the  status 
of  no  negligible  fraction  of  the  Jewish  race.  Those 
who  go  to  Palestine  will  not  be  like  those  who  now 
migrate  to  London  or  New  York.  They  will  not 
be  animated  merely  by  the  desire  to  lead  in  happier 
surroundings  the  kind  of  life  they  formerly  led  in 
Eastern  Europe.  They  will  go  in  order  to  join  a 
civil  community  which  completely  harmonises  with 
their  historical  and  religious  sentiments:  a  com- 
munity bound  to  the  land  it  inhabits  by  something 
deeper  even  than  custom :  a  community  whose  mem- 
bers will  suffer  from  no  divided  loyalty,  nor  any 
temptation  to  hate  the  laws  under  which  they  are 
forced  to  live.  To  them  the  material  gain  should 
be  great;  but  surely  the  spiritual  gain  will  be 
greater  still. 

But  these,  it  will  be  said,  are  not  the  only  Jews 
whose  welfare  we  have  to  consider.  Granting,  if 
only  for  argument's  sake,  that  Zionism  will  on  them 
confer  a  benefit,  will  it  not  inflict  an  injury  upon 
others  who,  though  Jews  by  descent,  and  often  by 
religion,  desire  wholly  to  identify  themselves  with 
the  life  of  the  country  wherein  they  have  made 
their  home?  Among  these  are  to  be  found  some  of 
the  most  gifted  members  of  a  gifted  race.    Their 


A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM     239 

ranks  contain  (at  least,  so  I  think)  more  than  their 
proportionate  share  of  the  world's  supply  of  men 
distinguished  in  science  and  philosophy,  literature 
and  art,  medicine,  politics  and  law.  (Of  finance 
and  business  I  need  say  nothing.) 

Now  there  is  no  doubt  that  many  of  this  class 
look  with  a  certain  measure  of  suspicion  and  even 
dislike  upon  the  Zionist  movement.  They  fear  that 
it  will  adversely  affect  their  position  in  the  country 
of  their  adoption.  The  great  majority  of  them 
have  no  desire  to  settle  in  Palestine.  Even  suppos- 
ing a  Zionist  community  were  established,  they 
would  not  join  it.  But  they  seem  to  think  (if  I 
understand  them  rightly)  that  so  soon  as  such  a 
community  came  into  being  men  of  Jewish  blood, 
still  more  men  of  Jewish  religion,  would  be  regard- 
ed by  unkindly  critics  as  out  of  place  elsewhere. 
Their  ancient  home  having  been  restored  to  them, 
they  would  be  expected  to  reside  there. 

I  cannot  share  these  fears.  I  do  not  deny  that, 
in  some  countries  where  legal  equality  is  firmly  es- 
tablished, Jews  may  still  be  regarded  with  a  certain 
measure  of  prejudice.  But  this  prejudice,  where  it 
exists,  is  not  due  to  Zionism,  nor  will  Zionism  em- 
bitter it.  The  tendency  should  surely  be  the  other 
way.  Everything  which  assimilates  the  national 
and  international  status  of  the  Jews  to  that  of  other 
races  ought  to  mitigate  what  remains  of  ancient 


240     A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM 

antipathies:  and  evidently  this  assimilation  would 
be  promoted  by  giving  them  that  which  all  other 
nations  possess — a  local  habitation  and  a  national 
home. 

On  this  aspect  of  the  subject  I  need  perhaps 
say  no  more.  The  future  of  Zionism  depends  on 
deeper  causes  than  these.  That  it  will  settle  the 
"Jewish  question"  I  dare  not  hope.  But  that  it  will 
tend  to  promote  that  mutual  sympathy  and  com- 
prehension which  is  the  only  sure  basis  of  tolera- 
tion I  firmly  believe.  Few,  I  think,  of  M.  Soko- 
low's  readers,  be  they  Jew  or  be  they  Christian, 
will  rise  from  the  perusal  of  the  impressive  story 
which  he  has  told  so  fully  and  so  well,  without  feel- 
ing that  Zionism  differs  from  ordinary  philan- 
thropic efforts  in  the  depth  and  complexity  of  its 
appeal.  That  it  will  do  a  great  spiritual  and  ma- 
terial work  for  that  portion  of  the  race  which,  for 
a  second  time  in  history,  returns  to  its  ancient  home 
is,  I  think,  obvious.  But  its  effects  will  not  be 
limited  to  a  narrow  strip  of  territory  on  the  east- 
ern shores  of  the  Mediterranean  sea.  They  will 
be  world-wide.  And  among  them  I  reckon  a  more 
complete  and  friendly  amalgamation  between  the 
Jews  who  neither  can,  nor  will,  return  to  Pales- 
tine and  the  populations  of  their  adopted  countries. 
If  I  am  right,  then,  indeed,  Zionism  is  no  mere 
local  adventure,  but  a  serious  attempt  to  mitigate 


A  BRIEF  NOTE  ON  ZIONISM     241 

the  age-long  miseries  created  for  Western  civilisa- 
tion by  the  presence  in  its  midst  of  a  population 
too  long  regarded  as  alien  and  even  hostile,  which 
it  has  been  equally  unable  to  expel  or  to  absorb. 
Surely,  for  this  if  for  no  other  reason,  Zionism 
should  be  supported  by  all  men  of  good-will,  what- 
ever their  country  and  whatever  their  creed. 


THE  END 


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